A New Naruto adopted from Rif1987364
by yukon5
Summary: A adopeted story that was abanded and my shot to try AND KEEP IT GOING Stong Naruto
1. Chapter 1

-1I don't own Naruto

Naruto was livid. He couldn't believe what Neji had done to Hinata. It wasn't like he was close friends with Hinata or anything but still, how could anyone do that to their own cousin. He was going to Kakashi-sensei to ask him to train him to beat Neji.

"Can you please train me Kakashi-sensei."

"No Naruto, I have to help Sasuke with his Sharingan and I can't train you at the same time."

Naruto could not believe it. Kakashi wasn't even going to try to help him. Fine. He stared at Kakashi's retreating back and swore he would get stronger than Sasuke. He went home and went to sleep. He woke up in a sewer. Naruto looked around and saw himself sitting in a meditating position. The other Naruto cracked an eye open and said "finally made it down here, huh." Naruto jumped backwards dropping into a fighting stance. The other Naruto waved his hand and said "calm down, I don't bite. I suppose you're wondering who I am and where we are." Naruto couldn't talk so he just nodded his head dumbly. "Okay sit down, this is going to be a long story. Save your questions for the end, got it." It was more a statement than a question. At Naruto's nod he began. "When you were around five years old, the pressure of trying to cope with everyone's hatred was starting to get to you. You were starting to go insane. Well your subconscious took action, and split your conscious mind into two halves. One half, you, was devoted to running your body while one half, me, was dedicated specifically to dealing with all the hatred. Follow me so far? He didn't even wait for an answer and starting speaking again. "So all of this time you have been running around with half a mind, which means all the training you did, all the studying you did, you had to work twice as hard and you still only got half of the benefit out of it. That is part of the reason you are so weak."

Naruto jumped up and shouted " I am not weak!" His other half calmly cut him off and said "you have done remarkably well with your handicap, but if you were whole you would be over twice as strong. I even know some cool jutsu I could teach you.

Now Naruto was confused and asked "How could you know stuff I don't?"

His other self simply smirked and replied "Well, while dealing with the hatred of the villagers along with running your body is a considerable task , by itself, it requires a relatively small amount of attention. Down here, it's nothing to do and all day to do it. I simply started experimenting with hand seals, and trust me, with years of doing nothing but that, you're bound to come up with some good stuff."

"So could you teach me a bunch of cool jutsu's right? Can you show me them now? Naruto inquired eagerly.

"I can show you them but as for teaching them, there's an easier way, but we'll get to that later. I know two techniques but they're pretty sweet ones." With that Inner-Naruto got up and performed seven seals and shouted "Earth, Wind, and Fire style: Flaming Earth Bullet no Jutsu." Several burning earth projectiles the size of basketballs were launched out of his mouth and when they hit the ground, they exploded, sending blades of wind and burning earth shrapnel outwards spherically.

"Whoa, that was the coolest technique ever!" Naruto exclaimed.

Inner-Naruto smirked and said "The best part of it is the Sharingan can't copy it." Before Naruto could ask why, Inner-Naruto started to speak. "The reason is because that was originally an eight seal technique, but if you have good enough control you can drop a hand seal or two from some techniques. However, the downside to this is that it increases the probability that the technique will fail. But if you have very good control you can pull it off with the same amount of success as if you used all the hand seals. Now for the second technique." After performing 11 seals Inner-Naruto called out "Earth and Fire style: Lava River no Jutsu." A torrent of lava came from his mouth forming a river that swallowed up everything in its path.

Naruto had stars in his eys as he shouted "Teach me those Jutsus."

"No" came the reply from his inner self. Before Naruto could say anything Inner-Naruto spoke. "It's not that I won't, it's just there's an easier way to do it."

"What is it" Naruto asked.

"Simple, we join. We become one mind again. This will give you the jutsus I know as well as catch you up on all of your back training."

Naruto had the 'deer in the headlights' look.

Inner-Naruto sighed. "When you trained before, you only got half benefit. When we become one, all of the benefits you missed out on will come back in a hurry. Your control will go through the roof, you will become faster and stronger, and since your mind is no longer split, you will become smarter as well."

"What do you mean 'become one'."

"What I mean is we will join to become a new person. There won't be a me or you anymore, there will be one new person that combines both of our patterns of thinking. If both of us feel strongly in opposite directions about something, the new 'us' will balance out in the middle. If one of us feels strongly about something and the other one really doesn't care, the new 'us' will inclined toward whatever it was, but not as strongly as before. If both of us feel strongly about something, the new 'us' will be even more strongly inclined in that direction. And if both of us don't care, then the new 'us' really won't care either" Inner Naruto explained.

"Wait a minute, how do I know you aren't the Kyuubi trying to trick me into opening the seal?"

"Because the fuzz-ball is over there" pointed Inner-Naruto. Naruto looked and sure enough, there was a giant cage with a nine-tailed fox sleeping inside of it.

"Okay, lets do this" Both of them walked towards each other and put their hands out. It was like walking into


	2. A Months Training

After getting up and showered, Naruto realized he had a problem. Orange. That was all that was in his closet. It turned out that while Naruto liked orange, Inner-Naruto hated the color with a passion. However, that was all he had to wear, so he reluctantly pulled his trademark jumpsuit and headed out the door. As he was about halfway to the clothing store something occurred to him. Most stores refused him service, and the ones that did, horribly overcharged him. He didn't like doing this but there wasn't really any other choice so he transformed into a boy of around sixteen with brown hair and green eyes. He walked into a clothing store and asked the clerk for some help. He told the clerk he needed some clothes for his younger brother who was in the ninja academy. He went back and picked out four pairs of an outfit with black pants, a blue muscle shirt, and a slate gray vest. After paying for them he headed home to change. He decided to go to the old man Hokage to see if he could find him a sensei. Naruto burst into the Hokage's office and planted himself in front of his desk.

"Yes Naruto, can I help you" the Hokage inquired.

"Kakashi refused to train me, I was hoping maybe you could find someone to teach me. If you can, I'll teach you my own jutsu.

Sarutobi laughed and said "All right Naruto, I'll train you for the upcoming exam if you help me out with the paperwork, deal."

"Of course, old man. When can you train me."

"We can start tomorrow, but how about teaching me 'your own personal jutsus" Sandaime said with a teasing smile.

"Alright old man, out at training field 55 in one hour"

"I'll be there."

One hour later Naruto was standing in the field with the Hokage and was starting his jutsu. Sarutobi was expecting something like the Sexy no Jutsu, but when Naruto performed the needed hand seals and call out "Earth and Fire style: Lava River no Jutsu" and a river of lava twenty feet wide and a three feet deep flowed from Naruto's mouth, the Hokage stared at Naruto in shock. Naruto took no notice of him and immediately started performing the second set of seals. "Earth, Wind, and Fire style: Flaming Earth Bullet no Jutsu." Sandaimes jaw was now on the ground as twelve flaming bullets came out of Naruto's mouth and destroyed a good section of the forest. "Where did you learn those techniques, Naruto" Sandaime managed to sputter out."

Naruto told the Hokage about everything and at the end Sarutobi was nodding thoughtfully. Multiple Personality Disorder was a very common problem among ninja but he had never seen anything like this before. Naruto showed him the seals and set the Hokage to practicing. His pride swelled as he was teaching the Hokage something. At the end of the day Sarutobi could perform both Jutsu very well and Naruto was out of stuff to teach the Hokage. Tomorrow they would start his own training.

When Naruto got there the next morning, the Hokage was already waiting for him. Sandaime held out a set of weights and a pair of black gloves with one inch spikes set in the knuckles. After putting on the weights, Naruto could hardly move. Sandaime ordered him to run ten laps around Konoha. When Naruto came panting in, he was forced to do five hundred sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups. After that they started working on his tai-jutsu stances and Naruto was surprised by all of the little things he was doing wrong and how different it felt to do them this way. After two weeks of this Sandaime said Naruto was ready to learn his first jutsu. The jutsu was called 'Shuriken Shadow Clone no Jutsu'. Seeing as it was so similar to the regular shadow cloning, Naruto got it fairly quickly. The second jutsu the Hokage taught Naruto was an advanced version of the shadow clone called 'Exploding Shadow Clone no Jutsu'. Afterwards, the Hokage asked Naruto if he knew anything about Summoning. When Naruto shook his head, Sarutobi explained that summoning was a technique that, after you signed a contract in blood, enabled you to call a creature to fight for you. Naruto was very excited and asked if he could learn how to do it.

"Well Naruto, first you have to decide what animal you want to summon. I summon apes, but I can make a summoning contract for just about any animal."

Naruto thought about it for a while and eventually decided on wolves. Sandaime made not one, but two summoning contracts. One was to summon enormous wolves, while the other one was to summon smaller wolves for the 'Earth style: Fang Pursuit no Jutsu'. Naruto got the hang of that technique pretty quickly, and moved on to the larger summoning. As the Hokage stood back, Naruto poured all of the chakra he could into the technique and slammed his hand into the ground. One of the advantages to having his mind whole was that he could concentrate better and utilize his chakra more effectively than he could before. He could also draw on Kyuubi's chakra without going crazy. Out of a cloud of smoke a wolf approximately the same size as Kyuubi appeared. It was pitch black with yellow eyes and a rift of white fur down the center. He looked up at Naruto and said "Are you the one who summoned me?" When Naruto replied yes, the wolf continued speaking "My name is Fenrir and if you want my help in battle you need to pass my test. You must stay on me the entire night."

Without even waiting for a reply Fenrir took off ordering Naruto to do some techniques if he wanted to pass." All night Fenrir pulled every trick he could think of to get Naruto to fall off but Naruto held on stubbornly and when the morning light crept over the horizon Naruto lapsed into unconsciousness. Fenrir placed him on the ground and looked at him carefully. "The sun has not risen yet, so I should fail him, but I like the kid." He turned to the Hokage and said "When he wakes up tell him he passed." Then he disappeared. Sarutobi took Naruto back to the Hokage tower and placed him on the couch. It was only two days until the finals so he decided to let Naruto have the next day off. The day of the finals came and Naruto was standing in the field with the other contestants. He glared over at Neji. That bastard was going down. He was gonna pay.


	3. Humiliating the Hyuuga

"The first fight is Naruto Uzumaki vs. Neji Hyuuga."

As the two took up their fighting stances, Neji had an air of superiority around him and said "So you got some new clothes, you will always be a dead-last." Surprisingly, Naruto didn't blow up at that statement. Another one of the byproducts that the joining created was Naruto was now far calmer and more difficult to rile up. He simply stared at Neji and said "Less talking, more fighting." Neji got angry at this and charged. He thrust his right arm out and struck Naruto in the stomach. Poof. Naruto turned into a log and from a tree to Neji's left threw seven shuriken. He performed the necessary seals and shouted "Shuriken Shadow Clone no Jutsu." The seven shuriken multiplied into seventy. Neji, seeing that there was no way to dodge began to emit chakra from all of his tenkutsu. "Heavenly Spin" he cried out as he began to spin, creating a shield of chakra that deflected the projectiles. As he stopped spinning, two members of the audience were in shock.

"Father isn't that-"

"Yes, that was my Heavenly Spin" replied Hiashi Hyuuga to his daughter Hanabi. "Talent like that is wasted on the branch family" he thought bitterly.

Down in the arena Neji was slightly upset about having to reveal one of his trump cards that early, but he wasn't worried. "It is your destiny to lose. You will never penetrate my defense" the Hyuuga said confidently. Several Naruto's rushed out to attack Neji while the Hyuuga simply stood there grinning. The first clone came within range and Neji struck out at it. He was caught completely off guard when the clone exploded, sending him flying through the air. The clones wasted no time, one of them going underneath to strike Neji in the chest knocking him back and towards the ground where three more clones were waiting for him. All three struck him simultaneously, lifting him back in the air while another Naruto came streaking down from the sky to smash his foot into Neji's face and drive him into the ground. With Neji apparently down for the count, Naruto smirked triumphantly. Suddenly Neji turned into a rock and from the other side of the arena spoke up.

"Did you really think it would be that easy dead-last. I am fated to win this fight, just as I am fated to be a member of the branch family."

"What is fate exactly" inquired Naruto.

"Fate is a predetermined course of events we have no choice but to follow. Everything we do is already decided by fate."

Naruto shook his head. "Fate isn't real, it's just something people make up to blame stuff on when they can't blame anybody else."

"Since you are so confident, I will tell you about the Hyuuga fate of hatr-"

"Save it, I don't need to hear the sad sob story of your life. I promised I would take you down and I will. Prepare to be beaten." With than Naruto pulled a scroll out of his vest and unrolled it. He bit his thumb and wiped his blood on the scroll while Neji looked on, furious that the dead-last had disregarded him, but also completely convinced that no matter what Naruto did he would win. After all, it was fated for him to win. Naruto performed several seals with the scroll between his fingers and then slammed the scroll on the ground crying out "Ninja Art: Summoning; Earth style: Fang Pursuit no Jutsu. Something seemed to be pouring from the ends of the scroll into the ground, but Neji couldn't make out what it was.

Up in the stands, Sakura and Ino were talking. "Naruto has put up a good fight, but I don't see how he hopes to win, Neji can block any attack he makes" Sakura said. "Yeah, Naruto is just a dead-last, there's no way he can beat a genius" Ino stated. "Heh heh heh" Kiba chuckled from their right. "That's what I thought about him, but underestimate him and he will make you pay."

Back down on the field the ground around Neji began to shake. A wolf head came out of the ground and and almost bit his ankle clean off. Several more wolves came out of the ground, two grabbing onto Neji's hands, two more grabbing onto his shoulders, one biting into his side, while two wolves each held his legs. One final wolf was on his back, its jaws around his neck. Neji was in shock he didn't understand what had just happened. He stared at Naruto's face and he saw a smug little smirk plastered on it. "Try using that Heavenly Spin, the force of them being dislodged will tear you to shreds. Surrender or my wolf will bite your head off." Neji stood there, knowing Naruto was right, but would never admit defeat to a rabble-rouser like Naruto. After about fifteen seconds Naruto shrugged and said "Have it your way." Just as Naruto was about to order his wolf to kill Neji, the examiner interfered saying the fight was over. Naruto looked over at Neji, remembering what he had done to someone already clearly beaten in the preliminaries. Naruto decided on just a little more payback. One of the wolves holding Neji's right leg let go and chomped him in his family jewels. Neji screamed and the wolves disappeared. Neji fell to the ground in agony as Naruto walked off the field and went to the balcony where the other fighters were waiting for their turn to fight.

The people in the audience could not believe what Naruto had done to Neji. Many of the male members were holding their own privates in sympathetic pain for Neji. Tenten felt like going over and murdering Naruto but the thought of what he had done to Neji kept her in check.

Up in the balcony Naruto smirked and said "Justice is served."


	4. The Remainder of the Finals

Sandaime watched Naruto very carefully from the Kage's booth. Naruto had never been like that before. Then it hit him. When Naruto's mind had split several of his darker emotions had been buried. Plus the fact that all the hatred from the villagers had been channeled straight on to Inner-Naruto. When the two minds merged, not only had the darker emotions that had been separated from Naruto's main mind come back, the bitterness from Inner-Naruto had also come back so the new Naruto, while not evil, was far darker and more willing to hurt people than the original Naruto had been.

Sakura looked at Naruto with more than a little fear in her eyes. She couldn't believe that Naruto would take joy in hurting someone. She shivered and turned her attention back to the floor of the arena.

Down on the field , Sasuke had not shown up for his fight with Gaara. After conferring, the Kage's decided to move the match to the end of the round.

"Will Kankuro of the Desert and Shino Aburame come down to the field."

Kankuro said "I forfeit."

"Very well. Winner: Shino Aburame. Will Temari of the Desert and Shikamaru Nara come down to the field"

As Temari rode down on her giant fan, Shikamaru mumbled about giving up. Unfortunately for him, Naruto overheard and decided that just was not going to do and shoved him down on the field. Shikamaru landed with a thud and simply lay there. "The clouds are so nice. I could just lay here all day" were the thoughts running through his mind. "Begin" came the voice of the referee. Temari wasted no time and brought her fan around for a wind blast at the prone Shikamaru. He replaced himself with a log and began to think up a strategy.

Temari, however, had already calculated the distance she needed to keep away to stay out of his shadow's range and was blasting away with Shikamaru hiding on the backside of a tree. His powerful mind was analyzing scenario after scenario and could not come up with one that would allow him to win. The only thing he could do was dodge Temari's wind blasts until the shadows covered the entire field. Even then he couldn't think of a way to beat her. She was staying well away from the walls so that option was nullified. Unable to think anything up, he did the only thing he could think of.

"I forfeit."

"What" came a disbelieving scream from Ino.

"Temari is staying well away from my shadows and her wind blasts would have eventually destroyed the tree I was hiding behind. Even if I somehow managed to capture her, there wasn't anything I could do after that. There was no way for me to win, so no point dragging this out any longer than it has to be."

Sakura shook her head and said "He really is the biggest and laziest coward on the planet."

Shikamaru walked back up to the balcony with a "How troublesome."

At that moment there was a gust of wind and a swirl of leaves as two people materialized in the center of the arena. One was a tall, silver haired Jounin the other was a black haired Genin. "Did we miss anything" Kakashi asked. Most of the audience face-faulted.

"You got here in time for your match but only because the Kage's decided to postpone it. Will Gaara of the Desert come down to the field." In a swirl of sand Gaara appeared. Kakashi teleported up to the stands and without any further ado, the fight was started.

Sasuke started off with a roundhouse kick that Gaara's shield of sand easily blocked. As the sand started to come towards him, Sasuke quickly retreated and made several seals. "Fire style: Grand Fireball no Jutsu" a large ball of flame came from Sasuke's mouth. Gaara simply stood there, waiting for the shield of sand to stop it, which it did.

"How am I supposed to beat him if I can't even hurt him. Kakashi told me about that shield of sand but I thought he was just exaggerating. I must win. I have to be the strongest so I can kill _him._" Sasuke was dragged out of his thoughts as the sand moved closer to him once more. Sasuke retreated as Gaara started holding his head.

"Yes mother, you will have blood, I will give you his blood" Gaara was clearly in a lot of pain as Sasuke started charging up electricity in his hand. Gaara wrapped himself in a sand sphere as Sasuke rushed toward him. Dodging the spikes coming out of the sand he slammed his hand into the shield. A howl of pain was heard from inside the sphere, confirming that Sasuke's attack connected.

"Kakashi-sensei, what was that technique that Sasuke just used" Sakura asked.

"That was my only original technique, the Chidori. It allows the user to punch through almost any barrier and is classified as an assassination technique."

Sakura was impressed Sasuke knew such a powerful technique, and turned her attention back to the fight.

A gigantic hand of sand made its way towards Sasuke who was forced to jump back to avoid it. Gaara's hand went to his shoulder and he cried out in a crazed voice "Blood, my blood. You have hurt me Sasuke Uchiha. For this you will die."

At Orochimaru's signal, Kabuto cast a sleeping Genjutsu on the entire arena. All of the civilians and some unwary ninja were put to sleep. Naruto felt himself becoming sleepy and realized it was a Genjutsu, but also realized he didn't know any way of countering them. Then he remembered an old academy lesson about Genjutsu, that in passing said if you suppressed your chakra, the Genjutsu wouldn't have anything to anchor itself to and you could break it. "No time like the present" he muttered as he suppressed his chakra. The Genjutsu wavered and he pushed his chakra down even farther. Success. The Genjutsu broke and he was free from it's effects. He heard a loud explosion coming from the other side of Konoha. The invasion had begun.


	5. The Invasion

Naruto rushed out of the stadium following Gaara and Sasuke, who he saw leaving as well. He joined with Shikamaru and Shino as they too followed the other genins to the battlefield. As they were going into the forest they were intercepted by several sound ninjas. "Go on ahead, I'll hold them." Naruto summoned a ten foot tall wolf and ordered it to help Shikamaru as he and Shino raced ahead.

Shikamaru stared down four sound ninja with the wolf by his side. Before they had a chance to do anything Shikamaru threw down a smoke bomb, and while they couldn't see he got them all in his shadow bind, and let the wolf do the rest of the work. In under ten seconds four sound ninja's throats had been torn out as Shikamaru released them a second before the wolf plowed into them. "Thank you for your help" Shikamaru said to the wolf. She nodded and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

As the sound and sand forces broke through the wall on the other side of Konoha, they were shocked to find nobody there. A giant hand interrupted their musings as they saw a man that towered over the city facing them. "Ah feels good to be part of the old team again doesn't it Shikato" the large man boomed. "Sure does Chouza" replied a tall, scarred man with pineapple-shaped hair as he used the shadows to form a hand and break a sound ninja's neck. "Your turn Inochi" he called out and a man with blond hair in a ponytail nodded and started forming seals. Seconds later, one of the sand ninja's turned and attacked his comrade.

A short distance away things were not going so well. The leaf ninja were trying everything they could think of to stop the summoned snakes and nothing was working. As a large three-headed snake continued to plow through anything in it's path, a large toad dropped out of the sky, crushing it under the enormous weight. The leaf ninja looked up to see an oddly dressed man with white hair in a long, spiky ponytail doing a strange dance on top of the toad. "It is I, the legendary ladies man Jiraiya, author of the world-famous Come Come Paradise, who has come to help you in your hour of greatest need!" The assembled ninja stared at him blankly for a moment before returning to the battle.

In the forest Sasuke was again facing Gaara who had gone into his mini-Shukaku state. He was now covered in sand taking on a grotesque appearance. Sasuke had already tried a Chidori on him and hadn't done much. Sakura, ever the devoted fan girl, had followed Sasuke and was rewarded with Gaara slamming her into a tree with sand and slowly suffocating her.

As Naruto and Shino raced through the forest they ran into some problems. Namely Kankuro. "You go on ahead Naruto" said Shino in his expressionless voice. "We still have to fight one another" he said to Kankuro. "I won't forfeit this time" Kankuro replied as he unwrapped his puppets. Naruto moved out as the two prepared for battle. Kankuro started things off as he disassembled his puppet and sent blades flying at Shino. They struck and Kankuro smirked before Shino exploded in a shower of bugs that climbed all over Kankuro's puppet. As they began to eat at the chakra strings he used to control his puppets, Kankuro realized he had to do something quick or he would lose his puppet. Then he realized he had bigger problems. Shino had gotten close to him and sent a swarm of chakra eating bugs all over him. They began to suck his chakra out of him and he knew he had lost this battle. Shino left him there not unconscious but close to it, and almost completely drained of chakra.

At that same time the Hokage and Orochimaru were fighting on the roof. Orochimaru's sound four had formed a barrier that trapped the two of them inside and prevented anyone else from interfering in the fight. The two engaged in hand to hand combat until Orochimaru pulled out his Sword of the Grass Cutter. Sandaime had to dodge Orochimaru's sword because if it hit him, the poison on it would be deadly. Sandaime ducked under a swing and with an elbow to the gut forced Orochimaru back. He wasted no time in performing the summoning jutsu and the King of Monkeys, Enma appeared. He immediately transformed into his Diamond staff form and the Hokage picked him up. The two rushed at each other again trading blows and blocks. When the two separated Orochimaru spoke. "Sarutobi, I have discovered the secret to immortality." With that he pulled the skin off his face revealing a woman's face. "Do you like it, _sensei,_ all I did was take the Yamanaka clan's most basic technique and alter it into a permanent technique. Ingenious, no? The Hokage looked on in horror, sickened at what his student had become. Orochimaru laughed and began making seals. "Fire Dragon Blast" Orochimaru shouted as a dragon of fire came from his mouth. "Earth style: Earth wall no Jutsu" the Hokage countered and the dragon hit the wall and harmlessly dissipated. Orochimaru then began one of his most sickening techniques: Resurrection to Impure World. As three coffins rose up, each one having a number on it, the Hokage realized what Orochimaru was doing. As his mind raced through jutsus to counter it, one of the techniques Naruto had taught him came to mind. His hands swiftly moved through the seals and he shouted "Earth, Wind, and Fire style: Flaming Earth Projectile no Jutsu." Twelve bullets came out of his mouth, four headed for each coffin. The bullets hit the coffins and exploded, destroying them before Orochimaru could finish the technique. Orochimaru screamed in rage and charged the Hokage, slashing downwards with his sword. The Sandaime skillfully blocked with the Diamond staff and thrust the end forward. Enma's head came out of the staff and bit Orochimaru's right arm, nearly pulling it off. Orochimaru reflexively dropped the sword and the Hokage kicked it out of his reach. He quickly followed up on the advantage, making seals and calling out "Earth style: Flowing Mud River no Jutsu. He didn't dare use the Lava River no jutsu for fear of collapsing the roof. Orochimaru was swept away by the river and the Hokage made more seals, crying "Earth style: Earth Dragon no Jutsu. A dragon made of Earth rose up and it charged straight at Orochimaru. It's jaws opened and it crashed into him, tearing his left arm off and slamming him into the barrier. Orochimaru, seeing the battle quickly go in the favor of his former teacher, decided discretion was the better part of valor and ordered the sound four to retreat. Sakon grabbed the sword and Orochimaru and his henchmen disappeared. The Sandaime breathed heavily, and made his way to the village.

In the forest, Naruto came upon the scene of the battle with Gaara. Sasuke was breathing heavily and trying to charge up another Chidori. His cursed seal flared and his hand crackled with electricity. He charged Gaara but the Shukaku-vessel swatted him away with almost no effort. Sasuke smashed through a tree and fell to ground conscious but racked with pain. Naruto flung ten shuriken at Gaara, performed the necessary seals, and shouted "Shuriken Shadow Clone no Jutsu." The mass of shuriken plowed into Gaara, making him growl in pain. He looked up at Naruto and flung several Shuriken of Sand at Naruto. Naruto jumped over the sand projectiles and started forming seals. When he was almost directly overtop of Gaara he called out "Earth and Fire style: Lava River no Jutsu." The river of lava poured directly down on top of Gaara melting the sand and encasing him in rock. Naruto landed and watched, having a feeling this was not the end of him. He was right. Several seconds later the rock cracked and broke apart from the pressure from the inside. An enormous amount of sand was being gathered and soon it took the form of Shukaku of the sand. Naruto immediately summoned Fenrir. The wolf appeared in all of his glory, equal in size to Shukaku. Fenrir eyed Shukaku carefully, rating him as a very dangerous opponent. Gaara forced himself to sleep and Shukaku emerged. Wasting no time he shot several air bullets at Fenrir. Fenrir lept straight up to avoid the blasts and began charging a ball of lightning in his mouth. When he was ready he fired the ball at Shukaku, hitting him in the side and sending the tanuki reeling. He rushed up to Shukaku grabbing his throat with his jaws and wrapping his tail around Shukaku's back leg. Fenrir yanked with his tail and pushed with his body, knocking Shukaku over. Naruto ran through seals and used one final technique "Earth, Wind, and Fire style: Flaming Earth Bullet no Jutsu. A single bullet came from Naruto's mouth and hit right behind Gaara, blasting him out of the sand and waking him up. "NO, I JUST CAME OUT!" Shukaku screamed. As the sand began to fall apart Fenrir's tail whipped around smashing Gaara into a tree. While the sand protected him, he cracked a few ribs and fell to the ground, coughing up blood. Fenrir disappeared in a puff of smoke. Naruto advanced on Gaara, and Gaara looked at him fearfully. He knew his existence might very well end today.


	6. Switching Teams

As Naruto approached Gaara, he started to speak. "Being alone is hell, isn't it." Gaara stared at him uncomprehendingly. "I know what you went through. I'm a demon-vessel, just like you. I was hated, just like you. The difference between you and me is I have people who saved me from that. You can have them too. Your brother and sister. They might be scared of you, but they still care about you. They don't like seeing you in pain." As Naruto turned and walked away, Gaara smiled. He could be saved, even loved. He barely noticed his siblings picking him up and carrying him away.

It turned out that Shikamaru was the only one who made chuunin. Naruto's fight, while very entertaining, had little long-term strategy, and the examiners felt chuunin needed to think farther ahead than what Naruto had demonstrated. It was now several days after the failed sand and sound invasion, and team seven was standing at the bridge, each wrapped up in their own thoughts. They had all had to help repair and rebuild the city. Sasuke was jealous of how strong Naruto was getting and vowed to squeeze the secret of that power out of him. Sakura was dreaming about Sasuke. Naruto was thinking about what he was going to learn next.

"Yo" came Kakashi's voice.

"You're late" Sakura screamed.

"Well you see…" Sakura's glare told him his idiotic excuses would not be appreciated. "Alright, Sakura, Naruto, I want to you to work on stamina and control. Sasuke, come with me, I'm going to teach you a new technique."

"What!" came Naruto's voice.

Kakashi fixed Naruto with an even stare. "You need to get more control, you're not ready for new techniques yet. Besides, Sasuke beat Gaara. As a reward, he is being taught new techniques. If you had beaten Gaara, I would be teaching you new techniques. That's just the way it works.

While Naruto trembled with rage, Sasuke's jealousy was immediately extinguished. He was thinking "What is Kakashi talking about? Naruto used two multiple elemental techniques and was able to summon and Kakashi says Naruto needs to get more control? I didn't beat Gaara, Naruto did. Didn't he even read the reports on what happened what is wrong with him?"

As Kakashi started speaking again, Naruto cut him off "Did you even bother to review my fights. Or did you just automatically assume you knew what happened."

Kakashi crossed his arms and stated "Naruto, you may have beaten Neji, but you still have more to learn. You can't rely on your special chakra all the time." By this point Naruto was visibly shaking, trying to keep himself from attacking Kakashi, while Sasuke and Sakura were wondering what the special chakra Kakashi was talking about was.

Naruto looked up and said "I quit." Ignoring the shocked expressions on his teammates faces he turned around to see Kakashi standing in front of him. "What is the meaning of this Naruto."

Naruto looked up and said "I quit, and I don't answer to you anymore. Out of my way." With that Naruto walked around Kakashi and headed straight to the Hokage's tower.

Kakashi turned to Sasuke and Sakura. "What was that all about?" When Sakura explained what had happened during the fight with Neji, and Sasuke told Kakashi what Naruto had done in the battle against Gaara, Kakashi felt an enormous load of guilt settle on him, mixed with anger. Who could have taught Naruto those kinds of techniques? That was far too much power for a mere genin. He couldn't think of anyone with a summoning contract for wolves. Then it hit him, there was no summoning contract for wolves which meant that someone had made one for Naruto. The only person in the entire village he knew that could make summoning contracts was the Hokage. So Naruto had gotten the Hokage to train him. He needed to talk to the Hokage about giving that kind of power to Naruto.

Naruto walked into the Hokage's office and stood in front of the desk. "Yes Naruto, can I help you" the Hokage inquired. "I want to change teams. Kakashi walked in today and flat out told me the only reason I beat Neji was because of Kyuubi, and gave away my credit for beating Gaara to Sasuke. He said I wasn't strong enough to learn new techniques and told me to work on my control. I don't want to be on that team anymore."

The Hokage leaned back in his chair, several emotions running through him. Disappointment and anger at Kakashi, pride at Naruto, and confusion as to what to do next. He thought about sending Naruto with Jiraiya, but there were disturbing reports about an organization called Akatsuki. Jiraiya's spies reported that Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki had been assigned to capture Naruto, and those two would be almost impossible even for Jiraiya to beat. So that option was out. He thought about moving Naruto to Asuma's team, who had just lost Shikamaru, but Naruto's abilities didn't really mesh well with Ino and Chouji's. He finally decided to move Naruto in with Gai, and move Tenten to Kakashi's team. Gai's team, no matter how talented, needed a nin-jutsu user, and Kakashi's team needed a strong teammate to inspire Sakura to actually be a ninja instead of a fan girl.

Leaning back in his chair, the Hokage blew a puff of smoke out of his pipe. "Alright Naruto, I'll let you switch teams." He then called out the door "Get Kakashi and Gai in here." He turned back to Naruto and said "Naruto I think it would be best if you were to wait somewhere for this to happen. Both Kakashi and Gai have to sign papers allowing you to switch teams. I think I will be able to talk Gai into switching but Kakashi will be the hard one. You might not want to be here for that."

Naruto nodded and left. Shortly afterwards Kakashi and Gai came into the Hokages office. "HOW ARE YOU TODAY, LORD HOKAGE. YOU'RE BATTLE AGAINST OROCHIMARU PROVES THE FLAMES OF YOUTH BURN BRIGHTLY IN YOU." Both the Hokage and Kakashi sweat dropped. Sandaime was privately reconsidering whether or not this was a good idea.

The Hokage cleared his throat and began speaking. "I have called you here because I wish to switch two of your students." Both jounins were listening intently. "It has come to my attention that Kakashi has been neglecting Naruto's training. I want to switch Naruto and Tenten." Before Gai could start ranting about the flames of youth Kakashi started in.

"With all due respect, Lord Hokage, Naruto is my student."

Sarutobi looked at Gai and asked him to leave the room. When Gai had left, the two remaining men in the room stared at each other. Finally Kakashi started to speak "Lord Hokage, were you the one who taught Naruto the techniques he used?"

"Yes Kakashi, I taught him how to summon, and the exploding shadow clones, but the multiple element techniques he came up with himself." Kakashi jaw dropped to the floor. Naruto had _invented_ two high class jutsu. Before he could say anything the Hokage continued "Naruto told me you refused to help him for the finals so he came to me asking me if I could find a sensei for him. I decided to teach him myself and he taught _me_ the two techniques he invented, one of which saved my life in the fight against Orochimaru. He beat Neji and Gaara, and you don't even bother to find out what happened, and immediately hand victory over to the Uchiha. You completely disregarded your student, so when he came to me asking to switch teams, I agreed."

"But Lord Hokage, Naruto shouldn't be using techniques like those, it's too much power for a boy his age." Kakashi argued.

Sandaimes eyes narrowed. "I notice you didn't have any problems teaching Sasuke a B-ranked assassination technique, who are you to say what is too much power."

"That was to prepare him for Gaara." Kakashi protested "You saw how powerful he was when he crushed Lee, that was the only technique that could break his shield of sand."

Sarutobi looked at him sternly and said "That is enough, Kakashi, Naruto is switching teams whether you like it or not. You are going to sign the papers allowing him to change teams. I will not permit you to be so hypocritical. You're making the same mistake I made, training the one who has the most initial talent and practically ignoring your other two students. Sign the papers, and get out of my office."

Kakashi knew any further resistance was pointless, the Hokage had made up his mind. He signed the papers as Sandaime called Gai back in. Gai signed the papers as well and the two left. The Hokage called Naruto back and told him where to meet his new team. Naruto nodded and left to go meet his new sensei.

As Naruto approached the field he saw Neji standing there with Gai. He approached Neji and said "Sorry about having the wolf bite you, but you needed to learn not to believe in that fate crap and stop being so nasty to other people." Neji looked at him and nodded.

Training started with Gai analyzing Naruto's strengths and weaknesses in the field of tai-jutsu. "Naruto, you have a very durable body, a quick healing factor, a lot of strength and a drive to succeed. However, you are relatively slow, you have a short reach, and you do not know an actual tai-jutsu style. I believe you would benefit from learning the Lotus style, the style that Lee and I use. If you work hard you will benefit for" at this point Neji covered his ears, knowing what was coming. Naruto was not so fortunate. "YOU ARE BURNING WITH YOUTHFUL POWER!" Once Naruto could actually hear again, Gai instructed him on the training exercises he was going to do. Gai doubled Naruto's weights and had him run fifty laps around Konoha. Neji smirked, knowing this was only the beginning of the insane training Gai was going to put Naruto through. When Naruto came in he was ready to collapse but Gai set him to work punching a log one thousand times with each arm and kicking the log one thousand times with each leg. At the end Gai allowed Naruto to rest a little bit. While resting Naruto thought of something and voiced it to Gai.

"Is it possible to use the Lotus without the bandages that Lee wears."

Gai nodded. "It is possible, but it is harder to learn how to do it. If you can master it, it will be the same as the original Lotus style."

At this point Neji left saying he had to meet his uncle for training. Afterwards Naruto spoke to Gai. "Gai-sensei, about Lee" at this point Gai was all ears "how bad is it." Gai sighed "Lee's spine has been crushed. Any attempt to repair the damage and the bone fragments could sever his spinal cord." Naruto nodded thoughtfully. Then he spoke "Gai-sensei, Kyuubi's chakra has some very powerful regeneration capabilities. If I had a medic there to help me control it I might be able to keep Lee alive during the operation." Gai looked stunned for a moment before grabbing Naruto and racing off to the Hokage's tower. When Gai explained Naruto's plan to the Hokage, he conceded it might work but would be obscenely risky. He decided to leave the decision up to Lee. Gai told Lee about Naruto's burden, and Naruto's plan to help him. Lee started sobbing about the flames of youth and how Naruto was overflowing with them. He enthusiastically agreed to the operation. It took almost an entire week to get everything set up. The Hokage and two medics would be helping control the flow of the Kyuubi's chakra. They drew an advanced seal on Lee's chest to allow his body to accept the chakra without destroying itself. As Lee was put to sleep Naruto was brought in. With the Hokage behind him and two medics on either side of him, each holding onto him to suppress the flow of chakra if it got too high, Naruto placed his hands on the seal, and began flowing the Kyuubi's chakra into Lee's body.


	7. Black Lightning

As the red chakra flowed from Naruto into Lee the medics began to work, cutting open Lee's back and searching for the bone fragments. Naruto struggled to maintain a steady flow of chakra, and he finally settled for constantly pushing more than was needed, counting on the Hokage and the medics to tone down the flow.

The operation went swiftly and without mishap, and at the end Naruto collapsed to the floor, exhausted from using and trying to control that much of Kyuubi's chakra. The next day Naruto and Gai went to visit Lee and discovered he was back to his usual self, ranting about the flames of youth and how he would do extra training to make up for the time he lost. Naruto quickly left when Gai and Lee began to hug each other crying out "Gai-sensei" "Lee." There are some things the human mind is not meant to handle.

While Lee was recovering, Naruto and Gai continued working on the Lotus style. Naruto was doing fairly well until he tried to open the first celestial gate. As he opened it he felt the massive boost of chakra, power, and speed Gai had described. Then he felt the sinister chakra of the Kyuubi flood his system. "AAAAAARRRGGGGHHH" Naruto screamed. It felt like he was being shredded from the inside out. He lasted a moment longer before collapsing due to the pain. The chakra aura around him disappeared and Gai rushed him to the hospital. Naruto was found to be exhausted, but any damage he had taken the Kyuubi had already healed. Outside of Naruto's room, Gai and the Hokage spoke in low tones. When Gai explained what had happened the Hokage nodded and began to speak.

"Opening the gates not only sent a sudden surge of his own chakra through him, it also sent a flood of Kyuubi's chakra through him. His body can't handle that kind of power rushing through him so suddenly."

Gai solemnly spoke "It seems he will never be able to learn the Lotus style."

When Naruto woke up, Gai informed him of this fact. Naruto was torn with conflicting emotions. Sad that he couldn't learn such a powerful style, and strangely, happiness. Naruto had never felt completely comfortable using the Lotus style, because he felt it was the commoner's equivalent of the Gentle Fist. The Lotus was Lee's style and Lee's style alone, and using it felt like cheating Lee out of the one thing he was good at.

Naruto had very little time to ponder all of this, however, as he and Gai were summoned to the Hokage's tower. When they got there the Hokage assigned the two of them a mission to check up on Wave country and collect the rest of the payment owed for the mission to protect the bridge-builder. Only the two of them needed to go on it, with Lee still recovering and Neji training with his family. The two set off and arrived in wave country a few days later. During the trip, Naruto had told Gai about the mission he had went on and how it had changed his view of being a ninja. When they got to wave country Naruto asked for some time alone to visit Haku and Zabuza's graves. When he got to the graves he saw a strange man kneeling in front of them. He had shoulder-length black hair and was wearing a brown shirt and gray pants.

"What are you doing here" Naruto calmly asked.

The man turned around revealing striking black eyes. "I am the maker of the swords of the Seven Swordsman of the Mist. I am paying my respects to Zabuza. Why are you here?"

"I was at the battle where Zabuza was defeated." Naruto then explained the whole story of the battle to the man.

The man looked at Naruto, seeing honesty, courage, and integrity written on his features. He made a split second decision that would change Naruto's life forever. "Would you like me to make you a sword?"

Naruto was stunned by the offer, but quickly recovered. "I would like that very much, but I don't want a sword as large as I am like Zabuza's."

"Very well, come with me."

Naruto left a note that told Gai he was leaving for two weeks and he would return at the end of that time. Naruto didn't know what made him trust the man so easily, but he sensed the man was honorable. When they got to the mans temporary workshop, he gave Naruto a sword and set him to practicing some basic sword routines while he worked. Four days later he emerged with a sword that was four and a half feet long, with a foot-long handle and a three and a half foot blade. The blade was straight and sharpened on both sides, about three inches wide at the base and maintaining that length most of the blade, narrowing at the end. The man held up the sword for Naruto to see, but he wouldn't let him touch it. "Before you take this blade, you have to realize something about it. The swords I forged were unique in that they took a person's elemental spirit and attributed it to the sword. Each person has a element they correspond with, be it Earth, Wind, Fire, Lightning, or Water. If you are heavily attributed to an animal, it will also take some characteristics from the animal and place it in the sword. You must perform a forbidden jutsu to seal some of your soul into the blade." With that he turned and walked back into the shop, motioning Naruto to follow him. He placed the sword in the middle of a seal and showed Naruto the hand seals for the technique. There were over forty of them, and if you did just one of them wrong, you would die. Naruto spent the next day practicing the hand seals and at sunset he felt he was ready to do the technique. There was no name for the technique, but it didn't really need one. Naruto performed the hand seals and slammed his palms down on the sword. There was a vortex of chakra, and a flash of light. When the light died down Naruto looked at the blade.

"Whoa" was the only thing he could muster. The blade was pure black, and had several downward facing notches on either side of the blade, making it look like a bolt of lightning. It was still three inches at the base, but the notches narrowed it until it reached the point. There were words on the hilt. When Naruto looked closely, he was able to discern the name of the sword: Black Lightning.


	8. Training with the Sword

As Naruto stared, the sword-master tried to pick up the blade. A blast of lightning came from it, delivering a rather hefty shock. At Naruto's surprised look, he explained "Each of the swords has a defense mechanism to stop other people from using them." Naruto looked confused and asked why he could pick up Zabuza's sword after the battle. The man shrugged and said "Zabuza never did the ritual you did. He attacked the Mizukage and fled before the sword was finished."

Naruto had no response to that and began to examine his sword more closely. The hilt had several silver and black strands wrapping around it for better grip. There was a v-shaped extension coming out of the hilt, with the blade coming from the open end of the V. As Naruto continued to stare, the sword-smith began speaking again "The color of the blade reflects the most powerful and common emotions you have. Black represents hatred, anger, sorrow, and pain. Of course, your element was lightning, and you don't have a favored animal." Briefly, Naruto wondered why there wasn't something about a fox on his sword, but he realized that since the Kyuubi and him were two separate spirits, the fox didn't have any influence on Black Lightning. He came back to reality when he realized the man was speaking again. "Now we have to find out what your sword can do. Pick it up, and try channeling your chakra through the blade." Naruto quickly did as he was told and picked up the blade. He thought the sword was around eight pounds, light enough to be wielded easily in one hand, and heavy enough to do serious damage to his opponent if it connected. All of this ran through Naruto's mind as he brought the blade up in front of him and began pumping his chakra into the sword. Black Lightning sparked and Naruto started to flow more chakra into the blade. Suddenly the whole blade section of the sword seemed to grow hazy and was crackling like mad. Naruto was so startled he dropped the sword and the blade immediately returned to it's normal state. A disapproving glare later and the sword was back in his hand. He started flowing chakra through the blade again, this time steeling himself not to drop the sword. As the sword again started to crackle, Naruto put more chakra into the blade, bringing it back to the state it was before he dropped it. As he held the sword at arms length he noticed the blade had gotten lighter, but he didn't really acknowledge that since he was completely shocked by what he saw.

The entire blade was now a bolt of black lightning. Crackling with electricity, Naruto thought the blade could cut through anything. He took a few experimental swings with the blade going through trees and even rocks like a hot knife through butter. After a couple of minutes the man who he simply called sensei called him over. "Alright, now that we've found the principal ability of your sword, I can start deciding which sword style to teach you. You are small, have a short reach, are not very flexible, are very strong physically, and have a sword that can cut through damn near anything. So you need a sword style that helps you use what you have to your best advantage. Since your sword almost can't be blocked, and adding your strength into the mix, it's pointless to have you go around your enemies defenses, so I'm going to teach you a style very similar to the one Zabuza used. It focuses primarily on powerful slashes that smash through your opponents defenses. I'm also going to be teaching you how to block jutsus with your sword." By this point Naruto was salivating at the prospect of learning all of the stuff sensei was talking about. He quickly wished he hadn't been so enthusiastic.

Sensei set up a brutal training regimen, doubling Narutos weights, and ordering him to do one-thousand sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, and a strange push-up Naruto had never even heard of before: the diamond. Instead of having his arms beneath his shoulders, his thumbs and index fingers were formed in the shape of a diamond, and placed under his solar plexus. Naruto thought it would make more sense to put it under his nose, but after just a few of them he realized exactly how hard it was having your hands so far back. And that wasn't the end of it. Sensei brought out a sword so heavy Naruto could hardly lift it with both hands, and ordered him to do one-thousand slashes left-to-right, right-to-left, upwards, and downwards. Naruto's favorite slash quickly became a move where he brought the sword behind his head, and brought it straight over and continued in a powerful downward slash. After that, Naruto had to work on blocking jutsus with his sword. While sensei was not a ninja, he had learned several techniques and could probably be ranked as an upper chuunin. "Smaller techniques like the Water Bullet no Jutsu, you bring your sword around and simply knock them away from you. Larger techniques like the Water Dragon no Jutsu, you bring your sword in front of you and flow chakra through the blade to split the attack and let it go on either side of you. We will work on the Water Bullet no Jutsu until you can block them easily, then we will work on the Water Dragon no Jutsu." With that sensei formed several seals and fired twelve water bullets from his mouth. Down, left, up, down, Black Lightning deflected the bullets, but five of them still got through. At the end of the day, Naruto was soaking, bruised all over, and felt like he'd been fed through a meat grinder.

That was the way things went for the next four days, until Naruto was able to block all of the water bullets sensei sent flying at him. His strength had increased as he was now capable of lifting the weighted sword with one hand. He still looked rather clumsy wielding it with one hand but it was still a great improvement. Sensei now sent Naruto to work on the trying to block the Water Dragon no Jutsu. The first time he sent the dragon at Naruto, the boy had forgotten to flow chakra into the blade. The dragon slammed into him and sent the boy flying. Several tries later he was starting to get the hang of it. "Water style: Water Dragon no Jutsu." Success! The dragon hit Black Lightning and was split straight down the middle, leaving Naruto completely unharmed. Sensei nodded with a pleased expression on his face.

At the end of the training, Naruto set off to get back before he was late and Gai started to panic. He had never asked sensei's name and the man had never given it. Still, he felt a sort a familial attachment to the man. He had taken Naruto under his wing and treated Naruto like he felt a father would treat him. Kind but stern, encouraging him but not letting him slack off or do poorly. As he was musing on these things he walked into Tazuna's house with his sword strapped to his back, and he was met by Gai sporting a relieved expression with a little worry and anger mixed in. Sensing that whatever was coming was not going to be good, he hastened to reassure his sensei.

"I met a man at Zabuza's grave. He said he was the maker of the swords of the Seven Swordsman of the Mist. When I told him about the battle he asked me if I would like him to make me a sword too. I accepted and he took me to his workshop and made me a sword." At this point Naruto showed Gai his sword and outlined his training. Gai was not to be so easily appeased.

"Naruto, that was a very foolish thing to do. You had no idea if that man really was who he said he was. He could have killed you, or taken you for the Kyuubi, or any number of unpleasant possibilities you didn't even begin to consider. I'm glad you're okay, but never do such a thing again. As punishment, when we return to Konoha, you will run five hundred laps around the village while wearing triple your weights." Naruto paled. That was a serious threat. Still, Naruto was glad he had went with the man. He had gotten a very cool sword, learned a powerful sword style, and had learned how to block jutsus with his new blade. All in all, he felt the reward was worth the punishment. He and Gai got up early the next day. Gai had finished the mission, and it was time to return to Konoha.


	9. Samehada vs Black Lightning

As Naruto and Gai made their way back to Konoha, Naruto was a little hurt that Gai hadn't even asked to see his sword, but then he realized the man was probably far more angry about Naruto's little stunt than he had let on.

The trip home was fairly uneventful, with Gai and Naruto hardly speaking to one another, Naruto training in his swordsmanship after they had set up camp. It was almost nightfall when they reached Konoha, and Gai went to the Hokage's tower, only stopping long enough to order Naruto to do three times what he would normally do for sit-ups, push-ups, and pull-ups. They would start his real punishment tomorrow. When he entered the office, he saw the Hokage speaking to a oddly dressed man with long white hair in a spiky ponytail.

"…that's everything I've heard. They cover their tracks so well even my spy network has a hard time keeping tabs on them."

The Hokage noticed Gai standing in the doorway and motioned for him to come in. With that the man turned around revealing a face with two red stripes running down the cheeks. He looked back at the Hokage and said "If you don't need anything else I'll be going, Sarutobi-sensei." Sandaime nodded and the man left, giggling perversely and mumbling something about research.

"What seems to be the problem Gai?" the Hokage asked, seeing the odd expression on Gai's face. Gai sighed and recounted Naruto's little adventure. "Hmm, so Naruto met a guy at Zabuza's grave, supposedly the maker of Zabuza's sword, offers to make Naruto a sword, Naruto agrees, leaves for two weeks training while the guy is making his sword, the guy trains Naruto in a sword style, and Naruto comes back with a sword that can turn itself into black lightning. That about the size of it?" The Hokage questioned. At Gai's nod, he ordered Gai to bring in Naruto so he could have a look at the sword. Gai rushed off to find Naruto and bring him to the Hokage.

Meanwhile, Naruto was doing push-ups in a training field a little outside the village wall. He heard a sound and looked over to see two men in black cloaks with red clouds on them. The first one had an uncanny resemblance to a shark. He was quite tall, had blue-gray skin and gills, and carried a large sword covered in bandages on his back. His companion was shorter, had black hair and red eyes with three comma dots in the iris. The Sharingan. Naruto's breath hitched in his throat. The same feeling he had trusted when he went with the sword smith was talking to him again, and it was saying these two were very bad news.

"Naruto, our organization, Akatsuki, wishes to meet you. Will you please come with us" the shorter man worded it as a question, but said it as a demand.

Naruto immediately had a kunai in his hand and slashed his weights off. He put the kunai away and pulled Black Lightning off his back. The shark-man grinned and said to his companion "Looks like this one don't wanna come. How about I cut his legs off before we bring him in?" With that he pulled his own sword off of his back, letting the bandages fall away to reveal what was quite possibly the oddest weapon Naruto had ever seen. It was around the same size as Zabuza's sword, but was covered in shark-like scales. Naruto realized he was probably out-matched and sent out a large pulse of Kyuubi's chakra, hopefully sending a signal that something was wrong.

Naruto channeled chakra through the blade and it turned into the black lightning it was named for, causing the shark-mans grin to widen. "What do you know, the kid has a pretty neat sword. Let's see if it's a match for mine." So saying he leapt towards Naruto, bringing the sword down in a powerful slash. Naruto brought Black Lightning up to block and hopefully cut the man's sword in half. As the two weapons struck the black lightning of Naruto's blade hammered into the strange sword. However, Naruto noticed something odd. Even as it was sinking into the other blade, the lightning was beginning to dissipate. Naruto's blade was now halfway into the other man's sword, and was in it's normal state. Shark-face looked shocked that anything had managed to damage his blade. Naruto wrenched his sword out of the other blade and dropped back into a fighting stance. The two swordsman began to circle each other neither one willing to give an inch. The shark-man began to speak even while watching for an opening. "I suppose you are wondering what happened to your sword back there, huh." Without even waiting for a reply he continued. "My sword is called Samehada. It has the ability to 'eat' chakra. So when our swords collided, your sword cut into mine while mine ate the chakra in yours."

Now Naruto was getting worried. It didn't take much chakra to maintain the lightning, but activating it required a fair amount. With the guys partner standing on the other side of the field, he couldn't afford to activate the lightning over and over again. He decided to leave the sword in it's normal state and try to stall for time until some help arrived.

Just as Naruto decided on his course of action, shark-face attacked, bringing his sword from left to right at Naruto's waist level. Naruto shifted his sword downward to block, but the man was so much bigger and stronger than him he found himself pushed back by the force of the blow. The man slashed at his chest, and again Naruto blocked, however, the power behind the swing knocked him off his feet and sent him backwards. Naruto rolled backwards and came up in a ready stance. Naruto knew he couldn't afford to put his sword away to use any jutsu, because as soon as he didn't have his sword to protect himself from the man's strikes, he was finished. Shark-face was grinning confidently, and Naruto couldn't blame him. The strange man had years more experience in sword fighting than Naruto did, was bigger, stronger, and faster, and he knew it. As he parried another blow, Naruto knew if help didn't arrive soon, he was going to lose. As Naruto was knocked of his feet again four figures dropped to the ground in between him and the other two. As he struggled to his feet, he recognized the Hokage, Gai, and Kakashi, but he couldn't recognize the other one. All he could see was his back, and he had a long, spiky ponytail.

As the four Konoha ninja dropped into battle positions, the man with the Sharingan spoke up. "Kisame, we must retreat. We can't take on all four of them at once." As the shark man went back to his partner, the man's Sharingan eyes closed. When he opened them, there was a three-pointed shuriken in his eyes. Before anyone could say or do anything he locked eyes with Naruto.

Instantly the world around Naruto turned black and red. He was surrounded by multiple copies of the man and was tied to a post. Before he could come to grips with what was happening he heard a voice. "In here, I control everything" came from one of the clones. "Let us begin" said another one. With that, they all began stabbing knives into Naruto's body, and he screamed in sheer agony.

"For seventy-two hours you are mine to do with as I wish."

After twenty-four hours of being stabbed, Naruto's torture shifted to being alternately burned and drowned. After twenty-four hours of that, the man came up with the worst torture yet: All the hate of the village, everything mean that had ever been said or done to him, the man dredged up and force him to relive.

Out in the real world Naruto simply collapsed screaming his lungs out. Gai started to rush the two men but the Hokage held him back. "Gai, taking care of Naruto is more important than chasing them right now. We have to get him to a hospital"

Gai stopped struggling, seeing the sense in Sandaime's words and watched angrily as the two men disappeared into the forest.

Kakashi picked up Naruto and tried to grab his sword but a quick jolt of electricity persuaded him to drop that idea. Gai explained "Naruto's sword was made by the man who made the swords for the Seven Swordsman of the Mist. Each sword has a defense mechanism to stop other people from using them." With that Gai wrapped Naruto's hand around the sword and lifted it up, carefully laying it on Naruto's stomach. Then everyone moved back to Konoha with Kakashi and Gai carrying Naruto, Jiraiya making sure Itachi and Kisame didn't come back for another try, and the Hokage leading the way. As the burst into the hospital Naruto was taken to a room and a twenty-four hour ANBU guard was set up. Gai looked in forlornly on his student, the sword still by his side, hoping he would be okay.


	10. Recovery and Training

Two days later Gai, Lee, and Neji were sitting in Naruto's room, looking for any sign of consciousness from the young genin. Little did they know that inside Naruto's mind, he was about to face his demon for the first time.

Naruto woke up in a sewer. His body hurt all over, and the hatred of the villagers was still fresh on his mind. He managed to get up and start walking down the hall. He noticed several doors along the walls and, curious as to what they were, walked over to one and opened it.

"Stay away, demon!" Instantly Naruto slammed the door shut. So, these were his memories. Not the most pleasant things in the world to be sure. He remembered they weren't here when he had visited last time, and concluded that that guy with the weird Sharingan had drug his memories closer to the surface. "If I ever get my hands on that guy, I'll shove Black Lightning up his ass." While he was inventing numerous slow and painful ways to torture the guy, he failed to really watch where he was going. He was dragged out of his thoughts when he realized he had walked up to a large cage. A pair of great, glowing red eyes appeared and Naruto immediately understood what that meant and hurled himself away from the cage just as several giant claws came hurtling out at him in-between the bars of the cage.

"**I want to eat you, but this damn seal always stops me."**

"So you're the great Kyuubi, hmm. You don't look like much."

"**Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. ****Why don't you come close to the seal and we'll test that bravado.**

"No need. I mean, how scary can a stuffed animal be?" With that the cage turned into a babies playpen, with Kyuubi being in the pen with several other cute animal toys. To top it all off, everything was pink. The change only lasted a second, but when it ended, Kyuubi was shivering. Naruto smirked at Kyuubi's obvious terror, and as the great demon began to regain composure it spoke in a voice that could freeze hell over **"DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!"**

"What will you give me?

"**ARE YOU THREATENING ME?" **Kyuubi roared.

Naruto calmly replied "If I am, what are going to do about it."

"**OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OOUUTT! **Kyuubi screamed as he shoved Naruto's mind out into the real world.

Naruto woke up laughing his ass off. Gai, Lee, and Neji were all shocked to say the least. Here was a kid who had been subjected to the ultimate torture of the Mangekyo Sharingan, and he wakes up laughing. Gai was afraid that the Tsukiyomi had somehow permanently damaged Naruto's mind. Lee's and Neji's thoughts were running in the same direction. After calming down Naruto told Neji about the Kyuubi and explained what had happened. They all shared a good laugh at the demons misfortune before Neji went off to find a doctor.

When the Hokage heard that Naruto had woke up, he rushed to the hospital to find Naruto explaining what had happened to Gai.

"…then I looked up, and you, the Hokage, Kakashi, and some other guy I've never seen before drop down in front of me. Then that guy turned his eyes into something weird and I'm tied to a post while he stabs me."

The Hokage cleared his throat and as Naruto and Gai's attention focused on him he began to speak. "Naruto, I would like you to tell me everything from when you found the man near Zabuza's grave until you just woke up." Naruto nodded and began his story.

"So you now have a sword that is the equal of almost any sword in the world, and you need a good instructor to help you learn more swordsmanship?" Naruto nodded. No matter how good your instructor, there's only so much you can learn in two weeks. The Hokage leaned back in the chair he was sitting in and sighed thoughtfully. "We don't have many swordsmen in Konoha, never have really. We're not like the Mist with their huge sword tradition. We used to have a fairly good swordsman named Hayate, but he was killed shortly before the Sand and Sound Invasion. I believe the Mitare's have a weapons shop and their daughter Tenten is a weapon specialist. She may be able to help you out."

Naruto nodded, he had seen the girl fight in the Chuunin Exam Preliminaries, and while she preferred thrown weapons, she was supposed to be no slouch with melee weapons either. Naruto made to get off the bed, but was quickly made to lie back down by the Hokage, who ordered a day of rest and observation to make sure there were no lingering effects from the Tsukiyomi. Naruto protested, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.

The next day Naruto was released and went straight to the Mitare's weapon shop. After receiving the usual cold glare he was asked what he wanted. When he replied he wanted to see Tenten he was told she was training with Neji. Naruto thanked them and left, their glares boring holes in his back.

"Tenten and Neji still training together, huh. Their not on the same team anymore but whatever works for them."

When Naruto got to the training grounds Neji and Tenten frequented he saw Tenten throwing weapons at Neji who was blocking them using the Heavenly Spin. He called out to them and they turned to see him running towards them. He came up to them panting and asked "Tenten, I got a sword, and was wondering if you could teach me some moves in using it. I'm already fairly good at it but I need to learn more." Tenten was reluctant to help him for what he had done to Neji in the exams, but he finally got her to agree by promising to only buy his weapons and ninja gear from her family's store. Neji left saying it was getting late anyway, not wanting to stay around an awake Naruto for any longer than necessary. He may have forgiven Naruto for the stunt he pulled in the finals, but he certainly hadn't forgotten.

Naruto and Tenten went back to the shop where Tenten grabbed a sword of her own to spar with. Out in the training area in the back of the shop, Naruto took Black Lightning off his back and got into a ready position. "Let me see what you can already do so I know what to teach you" came Tenten's voice. Naruto nodded, dropped into his stance, and showed her several of the stances and moves he used. "Basic but fundamentally sound and fairly effective" Tenten analyzed. Then she looked more closely at Naruto's sword. "I've never seen a sword quite like that one" she said. Naruto smirked "You have no idea."

Naruto flowed his chakra through the blade, and the lightning sparked and crackled to life. Tenten was amazed. Here was a sword that could be turned into a lightning bolt! She looked at it and the first thing out of her mouth was "How much do you want for it?"

"Huh" came Naruto's response.

"Your sword, how much do you want for it."

"Sorry, I'm not willing to sell it, and even if I was, it wouldn't matter." Naruto then placed the sword on the ground and invited Tenten to pick it up. She didn't need to be told twice. She pounced on the sword like a starving man on a buffet. As her hand closed around the handle, a blast of electricity ran through her arm, causing her to jerk away in surprise and look at Naruto questioningly. "The sword has a defense mechanism that only allows me to touch it. Even if I did sell it to you, you wouldn't be able to use it."

Tenten looked away as Naruto laughed at the peeved expression on her face. She rounded on him with her sword and Naruto blocked laughing all the while. Tenten's attack kept increasing in speed and ferocity and pretty soon Naruto was using every trick he knew to stop her from taking his head off. After around five minutes of this Naruto got annoyed and activated the lightning. Seeing the blade crackle with electricity made Tenten pause for a split second and in that moment Naruto sliced her sword in half. Tenten jumped on him as soon as the blade reverted to normal and pinned him to the ground. "Careful now, we wouldn't want your parents to get the wrong idea." Tenten blushed, realizing what he was implying, and got off of him. "Fine, get out of here! Come back here tomorrow at 1 p.m. and make sure to bring money for the sword you broke!" Tenten screamed at him. Naruto walked out of the training area laughing at her temper tantrum. Tenten swore and went back into the building wondering why she agreed to teach him.


	11. A Dangerous Mission

Two days later Gai, Lee, and Neji were sitting in Naruto's room, looking for any sign of consciousness from the young genin. Little did they know that inside Naruto's mind, he was about to face his demon for the first time.

Naruto woke up in a sewer. His body hurt all over, and the hatred of the villagers was still fresh on his mind. He managed to get up and start walking down the hall. He noticed several doors along the walls and, curious as to what they were, walked over to one and opened it.

"Stay away, demon!" Instantly Naruto slammed the door shut. So, these were his memories. Not the most pleasant things in the world to be sure. He remembered they weren't here when he had visited last time, and concluded that that guy with the weird Sharingan had drug his memories closer to the surface. "If I ever get my hands on that guy, I'll shove Black Lightning up his ass." While he was inventing numerous slow and painful ways to torture the guy, he failed to really watch where he was going. He was dragged out of his thoughts when he realized he had walked up to a large cage. A pair of great, glowing red eyes appeared and Naruto immediately understood what that meant and hurled himself away from the cage just as several giant claws came hurtling out at him in-between the bars of the cage.

"**I want to eat you, but this damn seal always stops me."**

"So you're the great Kyuubi, hmm. You don't look like much."

"**Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. ****Why don't you come close to the seal and we'll test that bravado.**

"No need. I mean, how scary can a stuffed animal be?" With that the cage turned into a babies playpen, with Kyuubi being in the pen with several other cute animal toys. To top it all off, everything was pink. The change only lasted a second, but when it ended, Kyuubi was shivering. Naruto smirked at Kyuubi's obvious terror, and as the great demon began to regain composure it spoke in a voice that could freeze hell over **"DON'T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!"**

"What will you give me?

"**ARE YOU THREATENING ME?" **Kyuubi roared.

Naruto calmly replied "If I am, what are going to do about it."

"**OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT, OOUUTT! **Kyuubi screamed as he shoved Naruto's mind out into the real world.

Naruto woke up laughing his ass off. Gai, Lee, and Neji were all shocked to say the least. Here was a kid who had been subjected to the ultimate torture of the Mangekyo Sharingan, and he wakes up laughing. Gai was afraid that the Tsukiyomi had somehow permanently damaged Naruto's mind. Lee's and Neji's thoughts were running in the same direction. After calming down Naruto told Neji about the Kyuubi and explained what had happened. They all shared a good laugh at the demons misfortune before Neji went off to find a doctor.

When the Hokage heard that Naruto had woke up, he rushed to the hospital to find Naruto explaining what had happened to Gai.

"…then I looked up, and you, the Hokage, Kakashi, and some other guy I've never seen before drop down in front of me. Then that guy turned his eyes into something weird and I'm tied to a post while he stabs me."

The Hokage cleared his throat and as Naruto and Gai's attention focused on him he began to speak. "Naruto, I would like you to tell me everything from when you found the man near Zabuza's grave until you just woke up." Naruto nodded and began his story.

"So you now have a sword that is the equal of almost any sword in the world, and you need a good instructor to help you learn more swordsmanship?" Naruto nodded. No matter how good your instructor, there's only so much you can learn in two weeks. The Hokage leaned back in the chair he was sitting in and sighed thoughtfully. "We don't have many swordsmen in Konoha, never have really. We're not like the Mist with their huge sword tradition. We used to have a fairly good swordsman named Hayate, but he was killed shortly before the Sand and Sound Invasion. I believe the Mitare's have a weapons shop and their daughter Tenten is a weapon specialist. She may be able to help you out."

Naruto nodded, he had seen the girl fight in the Chuunin Exam Preliminaries, and while she preferred thrown weapons, she was supposed to be no slouch with melee weapons either. Naruto made to get off the bed, but was quickly made to lie back down by the Hokage, who ordered a day of rest and observation to make sure there were no lingering effects from the Tsukiyomi. Naruto protested, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.

The next day Naruto was released and went straight to the Mitare's weapon shop. After receiving the usual cold glare he was asked what he wanted. When he replied he wanted to see Tenten he was told she was training with Neji. Naruto thanked them and left, their glares boring holes in his back.

After several days of training with Tenten, Naruto's sword skills had noticeably improved. He knew more complex techniques and was smoother in his execution. During training one day they were interrupted by a messenger telling them to come to the Hokage's office. When they got there they found their respective teams already waiting for them.

"Ah good, you're all here. I'm assigning you two teams a C-ranked mission to take care of some bandits on some outlying trade routes. Any questions." When there were none the Hokage told them exactly where they were going and the estimated strength of the bandits. They were said to have a chuunin level missing-nin among them, but with two jounin's, even if the missing-nin was stronger than chuunin, they should be able to handle him.

As the two teams filed out of the Hokage's office, Sasuke decided to taunt Naruto a little bit. "What's with the sword, dead-last, trying to look tough?" Sasuke got angry when Naruto completely ignored him. He was about to attack him when Kakashi told him that was enough. Kakashi looked over at Naruto, wondering what else he had learned to do. He was gaining far too much power far too quickly. He wasn't like Sasuke, who both knew how to handle that kind of power and needed that kind of power to kill his brother.

The group walked along mostly in silence, until several men jumped out in the road in battle stances. "Give us all you're money if you want to live" came the threat. All of the leaf ninja's dropped into ready stances, Tenten pulling out her weapons, Naruto drawing going into a nin/tai-jutsu stance, Neji going into the Gentle Fist stance, Sasuke getting ready to use his fire jutsus, Lee getting into battle mode, and Sakura pulling out a kunai. The two jounins also got ready and for several seconds nobody moved. Then the road exploded in action. Tenten's weapons were flying with deadly accuracy, filling one man's body full of kunai, shuriken and other weapons before he could blink. Sasuke used a Grand Fireball, incinerating two more of them while Neji killed another with a Gentle fist strike to the heart. Lee crushed one of the numbers skull before he knew what hit him, while Sakura was simply standing there trying to defend herself from yet another member of the party. Naruto had created several shadow clones which were swinging their own Black Lightning's into the fray with devastating results. As Kakashi and Gai disposed of their enemies with simple tai-jutsu, they noticed something strange. Enemies were falling left and right but their numbers didn't seem to be decreasing. In fact, they were increasing. More bandit's were rushing up to join in the fray. These were the ninja members of the group. One of them used a darkness gen-jutsu on Rock Lee, effectively knocking the boy out of the fight. Another one got behind Ten-ten, and managed to slash her right arm, before she sensed him. She spun around and decapitated him, but the one she had been fighting took the opportunity and slammed his fist into her head, knocking her out like a light. Sasuke was hard-pressed fighting three people, Neji was constantly using the Heavenly Spin to keep any of his opponents attacks from connecting, and Sakura had been disabled with a slash to the knee, and her opponent was ready to kill her. Naruto growled, pulled out Black Lightning, slashed off his weights, activated the blade, and went to where Sakura was in one leap, slicing off a man's head on the way there. He pulled the sword into an upward cut, splitting the man open from waist to head. He saw Kakashi with his Sharingan open fighting off four attackers and Gai surrounded by six men. Naruto had had enough. He spotted another group of bandits coming in from the left, and started running through seals. "Earth and Fire style: Lava River no Jutsu." As the river of lava poured out of Naruto's mouth to consume them, Naruto was already moving towards Gai and Kakashi. With the jounins free, the battle would quickly turn in their favor. He again pulled out Black Lightning and the blade crackled to life. Two of Kakashi's enemies fell before they knew what hit them, and the other two instinctively turned to face the new threat. That was all Kakashi needed to ram a kunai through each of their throats. As Kakashi went to help Sasuke, Naruto was moving towards Gai. These guys, however, had already seen him coming, and two broke off to fight Naruto while the rest continued concentrating on Gai. Naruto ducked to avoid a swing from one of them and brought his sword across the man's front. Blood sprayed out as the man fell in two pieces. Naruto didn't even give him a second glance and turned his attention toward the other one. The man charged Naruto but was taken down with a simple decapitating strike. Gai had disposed of one of his enemies by now and Naruto cut one in half from behind. Gai swiftly killed the other two and went to help his genins. Naruto summoned a wolf to help in their battle and as it took off towards two more bandits, Naruto looked around. Lee had been freed from his gen-jutsu and was taking care of another one of the bandits. There were only three of them left by now. Neji had another one desperately trying to parry his Gentle Fist attacks, while Kakashi had just killed another one. The last one was dispatched when a spinning kick from Gai cracked his neck. Naruto sighed and began to make sure there were no others hiding anywhere. When he concluded there weren't, helooked back to see Sakura and Tenten being carried on Kakashi's and Gai's backs, while the rest of the two teams were simply exhausted. They cleaned up the road and cut off the ninja members heads to take back to Konoha with them. As they began to trek back home, Naruto was ready for a warm shower and a nice relaxing sleep. He hoped next time they would get better intelligence on their mission. It was sheer luck everyone had survived and Naruto was more than a little upset. However, he decided there was nothing he could do about it, and concentrated on getting home.


	12. Returning Home and a Fight

As the group trudged back to Konoha, Sasuke and Kakashi were staring rather suspiciously at Naruto. They had both either seen or heard about his jutsus before, so they weren't really shocked by those, but what sent them on a new bout of jealousy was Naruto's sword. Kakashi felt strangely cheated, why hadn't Naruto told him about his sword? Sasuke just wanted to know where Naruto had gotten a weapon like that. Power like that Naruto clearly didn't deserve. Such power should be reserved for those who could use that power. He was the last of the Uchiha. He deserved that kind of power.

Naruto lost in thought, trying to think up ways to complement his fighting style. He didn't like the fact he had to put away his sword to do jutsus. He was also thinking about his elemental spirit. He was a lightning spirit which meant he should probably try to find more lightning jutsu. The problem was that while Konoha had a large amount of Fire, Earth, and Water techniques and even a fair amount of Wind, Lightning jutsus were almost non-existent. If he wanted to learn lightning jutsu, he was probably going to have to go to Kakashi. His Sharingan had copied over one thousand jutsu and he was pretty sure at least some of them were lightning. The main problem he was having was he didn't want to go to Kakashi. He resolved to see if he could find a good lightning jutsu user, or at least a couple of good scrolls on them.

When they entered Konoha and reported the mission to the Hokage, he bore a grim face. What he hadn't told the teams before they left was that this mission had been requested by the council, and originally they had only requested one genin team. Since Kakashi's team was supposed to have been out on a C-ranked border patrol mission at the time, which had been delayed because they couldn't find Tenten, the only team that was available was Gai's, and by proxy, Naruto's team.

It had been a spur of the moment decision to ignore the border patrol and send two genin teams on this mission, but it seemed to have been well worth it. Sandaime bumped the mission rank up and gave them credit and pay for a B-ranked mission. Afterwards the genins and their instructors left his office to do their own things, with Kakashi and Sasuke following Naruto to his training grounds.

Sandaime strode to the council, determined to end this once and for all. As he walked into the room, he noticed the council members all had smug little grins on their faces.

"Lord Hokage, why have you called an emergency meeting of the council?" came Hiashi Hyuuga's voice.

The Hokage gave him a cold glare and replied in an even voice, "It's about the mission you requested. It seems the bandits were much more powerful than you led me to believe. There were several missing-nins among them, not the one you said."

Hiashi shrugged "So our intelligence was faulty, you can't expect everything to be perfect. Did the team make it back all right?"

Although it was phrased as an innocent question, several of the other council members leaned forward eagerly to hear the news.

Sarutobi frowned, it seemed the hatred of Kyuubi was leading to some drastic measures. "As a matter of fact, they did come back" the Hokage didn't miss the disappointed sighs from almost all the council. "Because I sent another team with them! If you think you can try to kill loyal members of Konoha's ninja force without repercussions, you are sadly mistaken. I will-"

Shibi Aburame cut the Hokage with his calm, even voice "You must understand, Lord Hokage, the boy is a danger. He has been growing exponentially more powerful in a short period of time. The only way this could happen is if the fox has had something to do with it. He must be killed before the fox takes over and he destroys us all." Several of the other council members nodded at his statement.

Hiashi Hyuuga spoke up "You cannot deny us, Lord Hokage. You must do what is best for the village, and the Kyuubi brat is a danger that must be eliminated."

Sarutobi looked over the council, seeing the smug expressions on their faces. So they thought they weilded more power than he did, hmm. Well he was going to nip this little revolt right in the bud. "In case you have forgotten, I am the Hokage. One more word about this and I will have you all executed. If you think you have more power than I do, you are in for a nasty surprise. I will know if you try something like this again, and if you do, you will be begging to be given to Orochimaru by the time I'm through with you." As the council members paled, the Hokage exited the room, trying not to kill them immediately. The utter nerve of those simpering old fools, threatening him! He normally didn't act like that but for them to try to bully him into executing a ninja who had saved them during the Sand and Sound Invasion made him angry like almost nothing else could. Especially when that ninja happened to be like a grandson to him.

Naruto had went to his favorite training area, Tenten being busy in the shop today. Naruto was moving through several stances with his sword when he felt a presence in the tree behind him. He stopped and called out "You can come out, I know you're there. Within two seconds Sasuke had appeared before him.

"How did you get so strong, and where did you get that sword?" he demanded aggressively.

Naruto stared back at him impassively for a moment before turning around and going back to his training. Sasuke let out a scream of rage and flashed through seals shouting "Fire style: Mythical Fire Flower no Jutsu." Naruto spun around in time to see the first fireball come out of Sasuke's mouth. His training with Sensei came back to him. Down, left, up, down, his sword began to move, deflecting the fireballs before they could hit him. When the smoke cleared Naruto was standing there completely unharmed. Sasuke couldn't believe it, and it took his mind a few seconds to process the information. When he realized Naruto had seemingly effortlessly blocked his technique, he growled and began running through another set of seals. "Fire style: Fire Dragon Blast." A dragon of fire appeared from his mouth and charged at Naruto. Naruto again thought back to his lessons and held the sword in front of him, flowing chakra through the blade. Not enough to transform it into the black lightning, but enough to form a chakra edge to split the dragon and let it pass harmlessly by on either side of him. When Sasuke saw that Naruto had again rendered his technique useless, he flashed through three seals and gripped his left wrist with his right hand. Lightning began to form in his outstretched left hand and Naruto jumped backwards, activating Black Lightning and waiting for Sasuke to come rushing at him.

Naruto wasn't disappointed, as Sasuke pulled his arm back and charged straight at him. Naruto brought Black Lightning down to meet Sasuke's Chidori. The two lightnings met and the result was very one-sided. Naruto's sword cut straight through Sasuke's technique and slashed through his arm up to the elbow. Sasuke fell back screaming in pain as Kakashi rushed out of the trees.

"What did you do that for?" He shouted at Naruto who simply stared down at Sasuke.

"What do you mean, what did I do that for, he attacked me." Naruto retorted.

Kakashi completely ignored him as he picked up Sasuke and glared at Naruto. "You and I and the Hokage are going to have a talk about this." He promised as he rushed Sasuke to the hospital. Naruto sighed and went back to his training. He hadn't wanted to do that to Sasuke, but Sasuke had attacked him first. He deserved it. With those thoughts he dropped down to the ground and began to do push-ups, Black Lightning strapped securely across his back.


	13. Putting Kakashi in his place

When Naruto woke up in the morning, he didn't move at first, he simply laid there and pondered the previous day's events. He wondered what he was going to do for training and what the Hokage's reaction would be to his fight with Sasuke yesterday.

He stared at the ceiling as he imagined what the villagers reaction would be when they found out what he had done to the 'precious Uchiha'. He shook his head to clear himself of those thoughts. Self-pity would do nothing. He got up and pulled his outfit on, fingering the gray vest and remembering how he had changed over the last two and a half months. He walked over to the table and began to work out the things he needed to improve the most.

Physical strength was a definite must. He had been knocked around like a rag doll in the fight with that Kisame guy. Speed was another thing, Lee could still run in circles around him. As he was thinking about what else to improve he looked over at his sword and something hit him. What he really needed was to break down his fighting style and pick things that would complement it the most. Black Lightning was a reflection of his fighting style. He was a short range fighter, always had been. He preferred to attack head-on, overpower his opponent, and deal as much damage as he possibly could with each strike. It wasn't that he wasn't proud of the techniques he had invented, or that he wasn't grateful that the Hokage had taught him for the chuunin exams, but nothing of what he had learned really worked with his style of fighting. He didn't like to sit back and fight his opponent in a jutsu battle, he wanted to get in there and hit something.

As he started to rearrange his training, there was a knock at the door. When he opened it he saw a bear-masked ANBU standing there.

"Naruto Uzumaki, the Hokage requests your presence." Naruto nodded and went back inside to grab his sword. With Black Lightning now securely strapped to his back, he followed the ANBU across the rooftops to the Hokage's tower. The man stopped at the door to the Hokage's office and motioned for Naruto to go inside. When he entered, he found both the Hokage and Kakashi waiting for him.

"Naruto, Kakashi tells me you had an altercation with Sasuke last night. I need you to tell me what happened." So Naruto began his story from when he had begun training, to when he had sensed Sasuke's presence. He told the Hokage of Sasuke's demand, and how he had ignored him to continue training. He spoke of Sasuke attacking him, and how he had defended himself against the Uchiha's attacks. He ended by telling how Kakashi had reacted to the incident, and the promise of a talk with the Hokage. Sandaime placed his hands under his chin and thought about what to do. "Since you only defended yourself when Sasuke attacked you without provocation, and didn't unnecessarily harm him, I don't think you need to be punished."

Kakashi opened his mouth to speak but Sarutobi cut him off. "What I would like to understand is why you, Kakashi, allowed Sasuke to attack Naruto not once, but three times! You do realize that attacking a loyal Konoha ninja is equivalent to treason."

"Lord Hokage, I felt that Sasuke needed to be handled gently. With the cursed seal, what happened to his family, and Naruto growing stronger than him so rapidly, Sasuke needed to be handled with caution to prevent his giving in to the cursed seal and running to Orochimaru for power. I feel that Naruto should teach Sasuke everything he knows, and either give Sasuke his sword, or make him one the equal of it. Sasuke needs to kill his brother as quickly as possible for him to get on with his life. If Naruto was in any real danger I would have stepped in. Believe me when I say Naruto was in no danger."

Both Naruto and the Hokage were shocked by what Kakashi was saying. Sandaime went to speak, but Naruto beat him to it. "So you don't consider two fire jutsu and an assassination technique to be any real danger. Sasuke could have killed me, and you get mad at me for blocking his jutsu. What about all that 'Those who break the rules are trash, but those who don't take care of their comrades are worse than trash' crap you spout off, or is that nothing but empty air? And for your information, my sword only lets me touch it, so I can't give it to Sasuke and wouldn't even if I could. As for making one, while sensei did give me permission to teach the technique for making swords like that to others, there is no way I would even consider giving that arrogant, spoiled, bloodline brat a sword that could even hold a candle to Black Lightning."

Kakashi stared hard at Naruto. "I'm sure you could disable that defense on the sword if you wanted to. Giving up a few techniques and a sword is not going to kill you." By this point both Naruto and the Hokage were shaking in rage, but Kakashi continued on oblivious. "If you had simply given Sasuke what he wanted, none of this would have happened. Lord Hokage, I recommend that Naruto be punished for hurting a loyal Konoha ninja, and be forced to give Sasuke his techniques and sword, and then have Naruto's memory of those techniques erased. He has too much power for a boy his age and it's obviously going to his head."

Sandaime forced himself to calm down and said "Kakashi, you have proven yourself to be incapable of unbiased judgment. You are relieved of your ninja duties until such time as you can be trusted to be fair and impartial. You are dismissed."

As Kakashi gaped, two ANBU appeared and dragged the stunned Kakashi out of the room. Sure he was a little forgiving, but who wouldn't be? Sasuke was dealing with the cursed seal, his brother, and Naruto all at the same time. Sasuke deserved to be excused for his actions. As Kakashi's thoughts continued along their path of making up excuses for Sasuke and blaming everything on Naruto, the said blonde was staring at the Hokage.

"Thank you for defending me, Lord Hokage."

Sandaime's eyebrows raised. "Lord Hokage? Since when did you become formal, Naruto?"

"I felt it appropriate considering the fact you just basically saved my ninja career."

Sarutobi laughed and sent Naruto out of his office. Naruto went out to his training area and began to do push-ups on the lake. It was a great way to build strength and control at the same time. When he was about halfway through, he noticed a flurry of pink hair coming towards him.

"Naruto! Get over here right now!" Sakura screeched at him. Wincing from both the decibel and the pitch, he made his way over to the bank. "How dare you hurt Sasuke, now he's in the hospital and it's all your fault!" With that she raised her fist, preparing to give him the worst beating of his life. Naruto, however, had come a long way. His crush on Sakura was ancient history, and he wasn't too keen on letting her take her frustrations out on him anymore. He grabbed her arm as it was coming down, spun around, and hurled Sakura over his shoulder into the lake. As she surfaced, her face was a mask of rage. "Naruto! I'm going to kill you!" She screamed.

Naruto calmly took out Black Lightning and flowed his chakra through it, turning the blade into the lightning it was named for. He held the sword a few inches above the water, and spoke in an icy voice "Take one step towards me Haruno, and I'll fry you. Go out the other side of the lake, and get out of my sight."

Sakura took one look at his face and knew he wasn't bluffing. Her entire being chilled as she realized the same person she had once hit and hated now hated her with an equal passion, and would kill her if she crossed him the wrong way. She bowed her head and started to cry while rushing out of the lake, heading straight home to her parents.

Naruto put his sword away. He knew he was going to get in trouble for that later, but that bitch had it coming. He decided to put his physical training on hold and go to the Library to look for some Lightning jutsu's, never noticing the concerned pair of eyes watching him from the shadows.


	14. Sasuke Retreval Part 1

Naruto sighed as he looked at the small scroll in front of him. Three genin level and one chuunin level technique, the grand total of all of Konoha's written information on Lightning jutsu. The genin level techniques weren't much, but the chuunin level technique was very intriguing. It used no seals, simply charged up an electrical shock in your hand, which when you touched someone, froze their muscles for a few seconds, giving you an opportunity to strike.

Naruto was just beginning to get up to go try it when Shikamaru walked in. Naruto looked curiously at him, since this was the last place he expected to see Shikamaru.

"Sasuke Uchiha has left the village. All of the higher ranked ninja are out on missions, so you and I are going to find as many excellent genin as we can to go after him. Meet me at the north gate in half an hour." Shikamaru turned around and left as Naruto gaped. "Sasuke left the village" he repeated in wonder. He shook his head and ran off to find more genins.

Half an hour later, he had managed to get approximately zero people to come on the mission. Neji and Lee were on a mission, as was Shino. He couldn't find Tenten and Sakura was useless so he didn't even bother going there. He got to the meeting place and found Kiba, Shikamaru, and Chouji waiting for him.

"Alright, now that everyone's here we can start. Sasuke was seen leaving the village with four sound ninja's. He is apparently heading to the Hidden Village of Sound. We need to intercept him before he gets there, and we're to bring him back alive if at all possible." Naruto, Kiba, and Chouji all nodded. "Now this is the formation I've picked out. Kiba, you're the scouter in front, and then I'm right behind you. Naruto is third, with Chouji bringing up the rear."

At this point Sakura showed up. "I heard you're going after Sasuke, and I wanted to come with you."

Shikamaru looked at her and shook his head. "You have nothing of value to offer on this mission. You have no skills we need to complete it. You'd just be in the way." He didn't have time to break it to her gently. She looked stricken as she looked at Shikamaru. Her face turned into hate as she looked at Naruto.

"This is all your fault Naruto. You had better get Sasuke back or-"

"Enough. Shikamaru, lets go, we're wasting time. The more time we spend arguing with this bitch, the farther away Sasuke gets. We need to get a move on."

Shikamaru nodded at Naruto's words and the four genins went out the gate and disappeared without a second glance. Two hours later they were jumping through trees in their assigned formation when Shikamaru called out for a stop. Down below them in the clearing were four sound ninjas, and an odd barrel. One of the ninja had six arms, while another one had two heads. They were certainly strange looking, Kiba thought. Shikamaru looked at Naruto, pointing towards each of the sound ninjas, then pointing at the barrel and shaking his head. As Kiba and Chouji looked on confused, Naruto understood exactly what Shikamaru wanted. He wanted Naruto to hit each of the sound ninja, but to leave the barrel alone. Naruto began flashing through seals. "Earth, Wind, and Fire style: Flaming Earth Bullet no Jutsu." Four flaming bullets came from Naruto's mouth, slamming into where the four sound ninja had been sitting. However, these guys weren't the personal bodyguards of Orochimaru for nothing. As soon as they heard the name of the jutsu being called out they were moving.

Naruto's bullets hit the ground and exploded harmlessly. The six-armed one didn't even wait for them to show themselves, simply grabbed the barrel and ran. Now four leaf ninjas faced three sound ninjas. "Kiba, you and Akamaru take on two-heads. Chouji, you take on the fat guy, I'll take on the girl, and Naruto, you go after the six-armed freak. Naruto nodded and took off into the underbrush, the same way the six-armed guy had gone moments before.

After running for several minutes, Naruto caught sight of a barrel on someone's back, moving ahead of him. He frowned and created two shadow clones, both of them using chakra to lengthen their strides to get ahead of the strange ninja.

When both of them appeared in front of him, the ninja came to a halt, allowing Naruto to catch up to him from behind. Naruto took a swing at him with his sword, but the guy ducked under it, allowing the blade to pass harmlessly overhead.

Naruto spun around to face him, Black Lightning flaring to life. The ninja in front of him suddenly grinned and Naruto dropped down just in time to avoid a bone spear. He took a careful look at a man with white hair and two dots above his eyes. Naruto had a problem and he knew it. The white haired guy was a member of the Kaguya clan, he knew they could use their bones as weapons. He didn't know all the capabilities of the clan, because he had been researching the Sharingan and the Byakugan, and had simply stumbled across the other advanced bloodlines known to exist. He now wished he had done more than simply skim over what each clan was capable of.

He also had six-arms to consider. He didn't know what he was able to do, but he could almost guarantee it wouldn't be good. Fortunately, as he was considering the best way to go around fighting them, the Kaguya was grabbing the barrel and leaving, which meant he only had to deal with one of them. Naruto was guessing that Sasuke was in the barrel, which meant he couldn't afford to waste too much time on six-arms. Naruto turned back to his opponent only to find the guy was retreating up into the trees. Naruto couldn't see him anymore, but he knew he was there.

"Hmm, this guy seems pretty strong. I'd better not waste any time and take it straight up to level two." So thinking, the curse seal spread over his body, and a third eye appeared on his forehead.

Naruto looked around uneasily, waiting for the attack he knew was coming. He felt more than saw several golden shapes coming from his left side. He quickly turned and deflected them all with his sword, but more arrows appeared from another direction. He continued to deflect them. Naruto knew this was his worst opponent, a guy who he couldn't see, and couldn't get close-range with. As he deflected still more of the strange weapons, he wondered how he was going to beat this guy.

Shikamaru was sweating. Chouji had taken down the fat one at the cost of the three Akimichi pills. His own opponent was fighting with strange demons she controlled with her flute. He looked over and saw Kiba and Akamaru were on the ground, breathing heavily after the two-headed wolf had failed to break through the gate the twins had summoned to defend themselves. As the twins advanced on the boy and his dog, Shikamaru had a flash of inspiration. Completely ignoring his own opponent, he grabbed the two sound ninja and held them fast.

"Kiba! Attack them now" Shikamaru shouted, praying Kiba had enough left in him to launch one more attack.

For one long second Kiba just lay there. Then he came off the ground already spinning, heading straight for the one called Sakon. Sakons face contorted in terror as he saw his death approaching in a whirlwind. Right as Kiba struck him, Shikamaru released the shadow bind but it was already far too late. Sakon screamed in rage and fear as Kiba tore into him like a hurricane, ripping him apart as blood was sprayed everywhere. Ukon looked stricken. He knew he couldn't live long without his brother. He was already feeling the life leaving him. As Shikamaru released the shadow bind, Ukon collapsed, too weak to do anything.

Naruto was having problems. As he spun around to deflect more of the strange weapons, Sasuke was getting farther away. He knew he couldn't afford to waste much more time with this guy.

"You're pretty good, I don't think I've ever met anyone who can deflect my weapons before." Came the voice from the trees.

"You're not bad yourself, I've never seen these kinds of techniques before." Naruto replied as he blocked yet another volley of arrows.

"You wouldn't, they're secret techniques only my clan can use. The name's Kidomaru, by the way, just so you know who's going to be killing you." Naruto could feel the guy practically oozing smugness.

Naruto was starting to develop a plan. After he deflected yet another barrage, he put his sword away. He knew he had to act quickly to avoid getting impaled. Narutos hands flashed through seals, having pinpointed the guys' location from his voice. "Earth and Fire style: Lava River no Jutsu" The lava poured out of Narutos mouth, and formed a river destroying anything in its path. Naruto didn't have any real hope of hitting the guy, he simply wanted to flush him out and get him into close range combat. He saw a flash of movement to the left. There. Naruto threw ten shuriken and performed the appropriate hand seals. "Shuriken Shadow Clone no Jutsu" came the cry. Kidomaru ducked under the shuriken and saw three shadow clones surrounding him. He pulled a made several swords with the spider thread and sliced through the ones in front of him before they could even mount a defense. He spun around towards the last one and cut straight through it.

BOOM! The clone exploded, sending Kidomaru flying straight towards Naruto. Naruto was waiting for him, his sword ready to split Kidomaru open. He looked around for something, anything to stop his flight towards the death that awaited him. He began to make the spider thread, but it was already too late. Naruto's sword cut him clean in half, from his head to waist. Naruto was covered with blood, but he didn't care. He didn't even look at the corpse, already heading the same way as the Kaguya, trying to find Sasuke.

Kiba looked at the guy he had killed. It was his first kill. He heard a scream and saw Shikamaru shaking his head as if to clear himself from a gen-jutsu. Kiba knew he couldn't dwell on this any longer. He started to reach into his pocket, and froze. He knew the danger of overdosing on the soldier pill. However, he didn't really think he had a choice. He pulled his hand out and fed a soldier pill to Akamaru and himself, getting ready to fight again.

Naruto caught up to the Kaguya in a clearing. As if sensing his presence, the Kaguya set the barrel down and turned to face Naruto. As the two stared at each other, violet chakra began to leak out of the barrel. Naruto stared in shock as the top of the barrel burst open and a figure with dark skin and hand-like wings took off in the direction of the sound. The wings began retreating into the persons back, and Naruto called out to him, guessing it was Sasuke. Whether it was or not would have to wait as he didn't answer, and Naruto had to dodge several finger bullets from the Kaguya.

Naruto pulled Black Lightning off his back as he began to circle the Kaguya. Two bones grew out of the other mans hands and Naruto came forward, raising his sword over his head with both hands and bringing it down, trying to end this quickly. However, the man was nothing if not skilled. He didn't even bother to try to block the sword, instead stabbing at Narutos wrist. Naruto fell back with a cry of pain, already feeling the chakra of the Kyuubi beginning to heal the wound. Naruto looked back at his opponent more warily. He knew he was in for a tough fight. The guy was good, had a strong bloodline limit, and had a level two cursed seal. Naruto dropped into a stance and waited for the guy to come at him.

Kiba and Akamaru had again successfully turned into the two-headed wolf, and were tearing through the forest at an insane rate trying to find that flute-playing bitch. As he crashed through another tree he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward it, recognizing the girl in spite of the protrusions coming from her body. She tried to move but found she couldn't. Kiba gave a doggy smile as he realized what was going on. Shikamaru had, again, trapped his opponent with the shadow bind to give Kiba a chance to hit her. He didn't even bother spinning, simply raising his paw and slamming it down just as Shikamaru released the jutsu. The girl never had a chance.

Kiba and Akamaru split up and fell to the ground, completely exhausted. Shikamaru also went to the ground, favoring his broken finger. A swirl of sand let them know of another person's presence. The turned their heads as much as they could, lying on the ground, and saw three people standing there. One had a huge gourd on his back and dark rings around his eyes. Another one had a package wrapped up on his back. The girl had a large fan.

Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari were looking down at them. "Wow, maybe Konoha genins aren't that weak after all" came Kankuros voice.

Gaara simply stared impassively, and turned to Chouji, picking him up with his sand. Shikamaru and Kiba looked panicked, but relaxed when the sand didn't implode to crush him. They were next to be picked up on the Sand Express, and were soon moving back towards Konoha.

Naruto waited for his opponent to make a move, but the guy just stood there. Then Naruto realized why. _He_ was on a time limit. His enemy wasn't. Naruto had to engage him. He put his sword away and began moving through seals. "Earth and Fire style: Lava River no Jutsu." The river of lava came tearing towards the Kaguya, and as he jumped out of the way, he saw several flaming earth bullets coming at him. He activated the cursed seal to its second level and grew bones out of his entire body, forming a bony armor. The bullets hit him and exploded. His armor shielded him from most of the blast, but the impact still hurt.

As he landed he saw Naruto coming straight at him, his sword crackling with electricity. Not having any other choice, he pulled the armor back off his thumb, bit his thumb and performed the seals so rapidly Naruto couldn't even see his hands moving.

A large puff of smoke obscured his vision and when Naruto could see again, he saw the Kaguya standing on a giant lizard made entirely of bones. Naruto instantly put away his sword and summoned Fenrir. The wolf appeared and the two giants faced off. The lizard scuttled forward, slashing with his claws, and trying to bite Fenrir on the neck. Unfortunately for the lizard, the wolf wasn't going down so easily. He jumped straight up, and came down on the lizards back, crushing it. The lizard screamed as it disappeared back from whence it had been summoned.

"Barely worth the effort. Next time you call me out, you better have more challenging opponents." Fenrir said as he too disappeared. Naruto dropped to the ground and looked around. He saw the Kaguya trying to get up, but it was obvious he had been at least partially crushed when his summon had. Naruto pulled his sword off his back and activated the lightning. As Naruto approached the Kaguya, his struggles increased.

"I must make sure Lord Orochimaru gains his new body. I must get up."

However, it was no use. His legs were crushed and several of his ribs had been smashed. His arms were useless, and he could only watch as his death approached.

Naruto brought his sword up, and in one swift stroke, brought it down, severing the Kaguyas head. He sighed and turned to go after Sasuke.


	15. Sakuke Retrival Part 2

This is the final Chapter of rif1987364's story A New Naruto. The entire reason for this was to keep what I believe a very well written fan fiction going. From here on out it will be all me. Please bear with me as I am currently writing another Naruto Fan Fiction as well so there will not be an annual thing. I will update it as soon as possible.

Kakashi was railing against Naruto in the jounin bar, and Gai, Asuma and Kurenai were getting angrier by the second. When Kakashi praised Sasuke, even though he had left the village, the three of them had had it.

Gai slammed his fist into Kakashi's face, sending him into the wall. Before Kakashi could get his bearings, Asuma and Gai were holding him down while Kurenai was doing seals for a gen-jutsu.

Kakashi saw Naruto. He saw how Naruto had been brushed off and hated, but still care for other people. He saw Naruto trying to help Lee. He saw himself favoring Sasuke and refusing to help Naruto. He saw Naruto working hard to learn techniques, while Sasuke just copied everything with his Sharingan. He watched the two side-by-side, and saw how Sasuke had never done anything of value for the village, while Naruto had fought to protect them from Gaara.

When the gen-jutsu was released, Kakashi felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. He looked up through pain-filled eyes, and watched as the three other jounins walked away from him in disgust. He lay on the floor for several minutes before getting up and walking to the memorial. He touched Obito's name. "I'm sorry" was all he got out before he collapsed to the ground, crying his eyes out. After about thirty minutes he shakily got up, and headed towards the gate. "I will not abandon a comrade again. I will make you proud Obito" were his only thoughts as he took off after Naruto and Sasuke.

Naruto had closed on Sasuke in a river valley. "Sasuke!" He shouted. Sasuke stopped and turned around.

"Come to get killed, dead-last." he said.

"No, I've come to bring you back."

"You can try." With that Sasuke activated his cursed seal and charged. Naruto jumped backwards and formed some seals calling out "Earth and Fire style: Lava River no Jutsu" As the lava poured out of Narutos mouth, Sasuke backed off, running to the river, using the river to stop the lava flow. Sasuke looked around and activated his Sharingan. Everything began to slow down.

Naruto knew he was dangerously low on chakra. Doing all those jutsu and summoning a boss was no easy feat by any means. He noticed Sasuke had activated his Sharingan. Naruto knew he couldn't afford to use many jutsu unless he wanted Sasuke to copy them. The only ones that were immune to copying were the summoning and flaming earth bullets. He didn't really want to use summoning, so he was really only left with one option.

"Earth, Wind, and Fire style: Flaming Earth Bullet no Jutsu." as six bullets went flying towards Sasuke, he began making seals of his own.

"Fire style: Mythical Fire Flower no Jutsu." Six fireballs came out of Sasukes mouth and collided with the earth bullets. The earth bullets exploded harmlessly.

Naruto swore in his mind. The main weakness of the jutsu was since the bullets were designed to explode on contact, even if you just threw a kunai at them, you could make them explode before they got to the target. Naruto pulled out Black Lightning and held it in front of him, watching Sasuke very carefully. He instinctively knew that Sasuke wouldn't come back to the leaf.

Sasuke charged and Naruto swung his sword across his body. Sasuke ducked under it and came back with an uppercut. Naruto leaned back and brought his foot up, trying to hit Sasuke in the stomach. Sasuke went to the right, and threw a punch at Narutos head. Naruto didn't even try to block it, instead bringing his blade down on Sasukes arm. Sasuke saw it coming, and pulled back.

'That sword of his can block all of my jutsu. I must beat him so I can kill my brother.' With those thoughts, a third dot appeared in his eyes. His eyes burned before becoming clearer than they had ever been before. He saw Naruto coming at him. He could easily read that Naruto was only feinting high and left, he was actually going to duck and go for the lower right. Sasuke pretended to be fooled, bringing his fist up to make it look like he was trying to hit Naruto, but when Naruto ducked he was met with Sasukes foot in his face.

Naruto was sent flying backwards. He flipped and landed on his feet, staring at Sasuke. He saw the third dot in Sasukes eyes and knew he was in trouble.

Sasuke was thinking 'Even if I have mastered the Sharingan, he can fight defensively and try to hit me with that sword, and if that thing connects there's no way I'll survive.' Sasuke then activated the second level of the cursed seal.

Naruto looked on as Sasukes skin turned a darker color and fat, hand-like wings sprouted from his back. The transformation was complete. Naruto barely had time to blink before Sasuke was on him. Naruto instinctively activated the lightning and brought his sword around for a strike. Sasuke easily saw this and jumped over it, delivering a massive roundhouse kick to Narutos head. Naruto hit the wall, creating a crater. Sasuke was immediately on him, delivering two powerful punches to his stomach, driving him deeper into the wall. Naruto collapsed to the ground, a large cloud of dust rising from the ground.

Red chakra began to swirl around him, forming the shape of a fox. During Sasukes strikes he had stopped flowing chakra into the blade, and now reactivated it using Kyuubis chakra. The blade turned into lightning again, but this time there was just a hint of red in the black of the blade. A claw of red chakra shot out of the dust and slammed into Sasuke, carrying him across the water and sending him crashing into the opposite shore.

Sasuke got up, rage filling his face. He performed three seals and gripped his left wrist with his right hand. A ring of dark lightning forms around him. He had advanced the Chidori to the Raikiri. As the dark energy coalesced in his hand, Naruto brought his sword up and came flying at him. Sasuke also went towards Naruto at top speed, his wings flapping to add more speed and power to the thrust. The two lightnings collided and to Narutos amazement, the Dark Raikiri was able to stand up to Black Lightning. As the two continued to push against each other, Naruto decided to take a gamble. He shifted his sword and let the Dark Raikiri pass by it and into his chest at the same time as he plunged his sword into Sasukes throat.

The chakra and power instantly died away. Sasuke collapsed, dying quickly. Naruto dropped to the ground, Kyuubis chakra beginning to heal his wound, but there was so much damage that while Naruto wouldn't die, he wouldn't be moving around anytime soon.

Kakashi burst out of the trees and saw the two of them lying there. He started to go over to Sasuke, but remembering what he had promised Obito, he went to Naruto and found that Naruto was unconscious but stable, not in danger of dying anytime soon. Then he went over to Sasuke and saw that he was dying. Kakashi looked at him sadly. Why did it have to be this way. He looked over at Naruto and decided to give him a present to try to apologize.

Kakashi dragged Sasuke over to Naruto and began to work. He cut out Narutos right eye and then transplanted Sasukes right eye into Narutos empty eye socket. Kakashi wasn't a genius at medical stuff, but he had learned a few things from Rin. When he was finished, Naruto had a Sharingan in his right eye.

Kakashi watched as Sasuke took his last breath. Narutos eyes shot open as the three dots of the Sharingan began to spin. They spun closer to his pupil and then exploded outwards forming three rods in his eye, with curved lines connecting the three rods (Kakashi's Mangekyo, not Itachi's). Narutos eyes closed and Kakashi sighed. He just stood there for a few minutes, not really wanting to move. Then he picked both of the boys up and began the trip back to Konoha.


End file.
